Only the Hawaiian Islands stand between Bell’s Brewery and national distribution, the Comstock, Michigan-based craft brewery announced today.
Bell’s has expanded distribution into Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Utah and Washington, leaving Hawaii as the only state where drinkers can’t get Two Hearted IPA or Oberon Ale.
“Expanding our footprint to become a national brand is a top priority this year, and we can’t wait to share Bell’s beer with more fans across the country,” Bell’s EVP Carrie Yunker said in a press release. “We’re particularly excited about entering the Pacific Northwest market, a notably strong craft beer market already, where folks have been asking for Bell’s for decades. We’re grateful for the incredibly warm welcome we’ve already received from fans.”
In its new markets, Bell’s is aligned with wholesalers that carry New Belgium, its sister brand under the Kirin-owned Lion Little World Beverages umbrella, a Bell’s spokesperson told Brewbound. Those wholesalers include:
- Columbia Distributing (which serves Washington and Oregon);
- Craig Stein Beverage (Idaho, Washington and Oregon);
- Crown Distributing (Washington);
- Hayden Beverage (Idaho);
- TEC Distributing (Idaho);
- General Distributing (Utah);
- Wasatch Distributing (Utah);
- Bald Eagle Beverage (Utah);
- C & H Distributing (Utah);
- The Odom Corporation (Alaska).
Work to align the New Belgium and Bell’s distribution network began in March 2022, when CEO Steve Fechheimer announced Bell’s would shift to the Reyes Beverage Group in all applicable markets, except its home state of Michigan. The move marked the end of an era in which now-retired founder Larry Bell notably refused to allow his beer to be sold by any Reyes subsidiaries or distributors wholly owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev or Molson Coors.
In May 2022, multistate operator Sheehan Family Companies sold the distribution rights to Bell’s back to New Belgium in Wisconsin, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, New Jersey and parts of New York. The deal involved nearly 500,000 case equivalents.
In 2021, the most recent year for which data is available from the Brewers Association (BA) and also the last year in which Bell’s fell under the BA’s definition of an independent craft brewer, Bell’s volume increased +5%, to 490,000 barrels. The brewery, then the sixth largest independent craft brewer in the U.S., accounted for 1.98% of all BA-defined craft volume, according to the BA.
Dollar sales of Bell’s and New Belgium’s combined portfolio have increased +16.3% at off-premise multi-outlet grocery and convenience stores year-to-date (YTD) through March 26, according to market research firm Circana (formerly IRI). Volume, measured in case sales, has increased +10%, making Kirin-Lion, which is how Circana references the two, one of the only top 25 beer category vendors to increase both metrics by double-digits.
Those increases are largely driven by New Belgium’s Voodoo Ranger brand family. Bell’s flagship Two Hearted declined in both dollar sales (-2.2%) and volume (-5.5%) YTD through late March. Two Hearted is the 12th largest craft brand in Circana-tracked off-premise channels and the only Bell’s brand in the top 30, but that will likely change as Bell’s summer seasonal Oberon Ale makes its way into retailers following its March 20 launch.