Portland, Maine’s Allagash Brewing was a test case of pandemic pivots. About 70% of Allagash’s volume flowed through bars and restaurants prior to COVID-19 shutting down those venues in early 2020.
Those closures set in motion a dramatic readjustment of the business that saw Allagash unleash about four years of innovation in about four months, including new packages.
Now, two years removed from those interruptions in business and regular life, Allagash — the 23rd largest Brewers Association-defined craft brewery by volume (and 32nd largest brewery in the U.S. overall) — is well-positioned heading into the summer.
Speaking to Brewbound, director of sales Naomi Neville said she’s feeling confident as the warmer months approach, even after the Omicron variant caused slower than expected draft volume in January and February. In the first quarter of 2022, Allagash’s total volume ended up +25% over the first quarter of 2021.
Even though Allagash’s draft volume is lagging behind 2019 levels, the company has come close to equaling those numbers. According to Neville, Allagash’s draft volume is in the “high 80s” of percentages of what it was before the pandemic, with the company reaching high 90s and sometimes exceeding 2019 levels at some points last year.
Meanwhile, Allagash’s business has also been bolstered by doubling its packaged volume since 2019, Neville said. With the added volume from new and existing packaging styles, Allagash is “100% better positioned” now than it was pre-pandemic, Neville added.
“Now we’re in more formats,” she said. “We have more cohesion between all of our brands — it actually looks like a good shelf presence. We’ve got the packages that we’ve wanted for these different occasions, like stadiums, concerts, drive-thru movie theaters. There’s not much we can’t provide a packaged beer for.”
Helping that confidence is the launch of Allagash White in 19.2 oz. single-serve cans, which Neville said has performed “really well” and received more placements in the convenience channel than the company “hoped.”
Also helping drive growth are the company’s 12 oz. can 12-packs, which have held up after the initial run on larger packs during the pandemic.
“That has been a huge success for us and just puts you in a different place in the store,” she said. “A lot of promotions that are run at stores are only run on 12-packs just because the display is so much easier for everybody to work with. So it just gives us that other opportunity.”
Neville noted that Allagash took “the biggest price increase” the company has taken “in quite a few years,” but in line with the industry average around 4.8%.
“We went into the fall thinking, yeah, maybe we could hold another year and then everything started hitting us, like all of our large suppliers,” Neville said. “And just not not even like 2% to 5%, we’re talking like 20% increases, 17% increases, and when that’s all your raw materials, you have to pass some of that along.”
Heading into the summer, Allagash will focus its efforts behind its flagship Belgian-style White, River Trip pale ale, Tripel and North Sky stout, while also getting a boost from a pair of seasonal offerings.
Allagash is also in the process of transitioning from its spring seasonal, Swiftly IPA to Floating Holiday blonde ale (5.2% ABV, 16 oz. cans and draft). The company also launched Seconds to Summer lager (4.5% ABV) in 12 oz. can 12-packs.
Neville said the company was “really pleased” with the pre-orders for Swiftly, especially in the typically slow early part of the year, and it is also “pleased with how it’s pulling through.”
Both Seconds to Summer and Floating Holiday are graduates from Allagash’s Portland taproom where they launched last year.
Allagash’s seasonal releases admittedly come with restrictions, Neville said. Allagash purchases an allotment of printed cans from can manufacturer Ball, which requires long lead times and minimum order quantities.
“We order as much as we think we can sell and then order a little bit more,” Neville said. “So our expectation is to sell-through everything that we have purchased. There’s really little room for us to be like, ‘That sold so well, let’s brew another batch and get it out this year,’ because our hands are really tied with how quickly we can get cans.”
Once those offerings do sell through, then it’s a question of whether the consumer pull was there for those products before deciding if the IPA, lager or blonde ale will join the year-round lineup.
“Do people want an IPA from Allagash?” Neville asked. “It’s always been one of those questions that hasn’t been answered because a lot of our consumers want a White beer from Allagash.”
Looking ahead, Neville sees opportunities for Allagash in national and regional chains — especially in the south after Allagash began full-time distribution in Florida last year.