Allagash Brewing Company will fill in the last piece of its eastern seaboard footprint when it returns to Florida next month, the company announced this week.
“Since we left Florida nearly a decade ago, our fans there have been constantly asking us to come back,” Allagash founder Rob Tod said in a press release. “We’re happy to finally make that happen, bringing my favorite beer, Allagash White, to our friends in Florida.”
Allagash will return to the Sunshine State through the seven distributors in the Molson Coors network in mid-October. At launch, the Portland, Maine-based craft brewery will offer multiple packaged formats of its flagship Allagash White statewide: draft, 4-packs of 16 oz. cans, 12-packs of 12 oz. cans, and single-serve 19.2 oz. cans. In the coming months, River Trip Belgian-style session ale and select special releases will follow.
The 26-year-old craft brewery first entered the Florida market in 2002, but retrenched in 2010. Allagash culled its footprint from 26 states in 2005, to 16 states in 2020. That strategy was informed by advice Sheehan Family Companies patriarch Jerry Sheehan gave Tod: Don’t be a mile wide and an inch deep. Tod recalled the wisdom in his address to the Maine Brewers Guild’s New England Brew Summit in February 2020, days before the COVID-19 pandemic fundamentally altered the craft beer industry.
In 2005 with a much larger footprint, Allagash sold 5,000 barrels of beer nationwide. In 2020, it sold 88,023 barrels — a 15% decline from its 2019 high of 104,103 barrels, due to the pandemic-driven loss of draft. Prior to the nationwide shutdown of bars, restaurants and other venues due to the COVID-19 pandemic, about 70% of Allagash’s volume flowed through the on-premise channel.
Last year, Allagash pivoted to ramp up its innovation pipeline to bring new packaged offerings to market, such as North Sky stout and Little Grove sparkling session ale. This year, the Belgian-inspired brewery launched Fine Acre organic golden ale, among other special releases from its pilot program.
Along with product and packaging innovations last year, Allagash also piloted test markets in Wisconsin and Florida, which were both deemed successful. The brewery reentered Wisconsin in July 2020 with White, Curieux and Tripel, sold by Beechwood Sales & Service, a Sheehan Family Companies wholesaler.
Its Florida test was conducted in partnership with Total Wine in May 2020 and featured White and River Trip.
“Florida is the state we get the most requests from fans to return to, and we were able to successfully pilot a test return to the market last year,” sales director Naomi Neville said in the release. “We’re thrilled to be able to expand in the state and work with our distribution partners to meet the demand there for our beer.”
The company is working to hire a Florida-based sales representative and aims to have that hire in place this month, a spokesperson said.
Last week, the Brewers Association named Allagash the brewery of the year among regional breweries between 15,000 and 100,000 barrels during its annual Great American Beer Festival (GABF) competition. Allagash White and Tripel each earned silver medals in the Belgian-style witbier and Belgian-style abbey ale categories, respectively. Last year, Allagash White won its fourth GABF gold medal in the witbier category.
With the addition of Florida, Allagash’s beer is now sold in 20 markets: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Wisconsin, Washington, D.C., and parts of California and Illinois.