Tony Magee, founder of Lagunitas Brewing Company followed Jordan and provided a bit of comic relief and insight into a startup brewery created on “my wife’s kitchen stove.” That early bit of kitchen experimentation took years to turn into a full scale brewery, but after many years of financial struggle his brand is on its way to building a new brewery in Chicago to accompany its Petaluma facility, he said.
Magee echoed Jordan’s message on the importance of branding and explained his decision to make IPA the company’s flagship offering in an attempt to brand the style — much like Sierra Nevada did with its Pale Ale. When developing their brands, Magee cited literary hero Jack Kerouac in urging brewers to look deep, as he had, into the values and desires that lie at the bottom of the well of personality.
On the retail front, Meg Gill, co-founder of Golden Road Brewing, and Dwight Detter, a local forager with Whole Foods, shared a video outlining their partnership with a behind-the-scenes, on-site look into the company’s growth. In the video, Golden Road brewmaster Jon Carpenter noted that 90 percent of Golden Road’s beer is sold within 50 miles of the brewery.
They offered tips on breaking into Whole Foods, suggesting that brewers not just have local facilities, but strong local ties at all parts of their production and supply chain, to truly sell the local story.
While Whole Foods can be a tough sell for new craft brewers, consumers are becoming a much easier one, according to Danny Brager, VP Group Client Director for the Nielsen Group’s Beverage Alcohol Team. Brager reinforced the opinion of many attendees that they are in the right industry at the right time, showing statistics that demonstrated craft beer had grown more rapidly than almost any other consumer packaged good — over a time period when more than 60 percent of food and beverage product sales have been declining.