Nearly 20-year-old Georgetown Brewing has only been packaging its beer for a little more than a quarter of its life, and although cans buoyed the brewery during the pandemic, they’re a distant second priority to draft in terms of sales and production.
“We were draft only until 2017, and then we put in the canning line in 2017, so we were, I would say, behind the canning revolution,” marketing and communications manager Ingrid Bartels told Brewbound. “We are not draft only anymore, but we do remain draft first. When we have beer, we make sure that kegs get filled first, and then whatever is ‘leftover’ goes into cans.
“We don’t want to out-of-stock our draft customers,” she continued. “We’ll out-of-stock cans before we out-of-stock draft customers.”
Seattle-based Georgetown produced 108,200 barrels of beer last year – more than doubling its production volume since adding canning capabilities (+102% compared to 2016), according to its website. In 2021, Georgetown was the nation’s 24th largest craft brewery by volume, according to the Brewers Association (BA), and the largest BA-defined independent brewery in Washington state.
This year, the brewery is on pace for 120,000 barrels and is projecting 130,000 barrels in 2023, which Bartels called a “moving target” that will be accomplished by increasing capacity through the addition of new tank space in the brewhouse.
Because of its dedication to draft sales, Georgetown’s package mix was evenly split between kegs and cans before the pandemic. However, the company’s mix has since shifted to 60%-40% in favor of cans. Adding cans to Georgetown’s portfolio has also allowed the company to capture more mindshare with their home market wholesaler, Columbia Distributing.
“Their percentage is 80-20% off-premise, or package, to draft and so for many years, we operated in that small sliver of 18-20% until we started canning,” Bartels said.
Georgetown’s regular can lineup includes Bodhizafa IPA (6.9%), Lucille IPA (7% ABV), Roger’s pilsner (4.9% ABV), 9 Pound porter (6.5% ABV) and Johnny Utah pale ale (5.6% ABV). All are available in 12 oz. 6-pack cans.
Bodhizafa IPA, the 2016 gold medal winner in the American-style IPA category at the Great American Beer Festival, “has been up 10% every year since we started” making it, Bartels said. Both Bodhizafa and Johnny Utah take their names from characters in 1991’s Point Break, played by Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves, respectively. (“You know how sometimes there’s a joke and then you just run with it and then it spirals out of control? That’s what’s happened here,” Bartels explained.)
“Right now, our biggest growth driver is our Bodhizafa IPA,” she said. “That continues to be our main growth – new people discovering that beer.”
Bodhizafa IPA accounts for 40% of Georgetown’s overall production, according to the brewery’s website. However, it has yet to eclipse Manny’s pale ale, Georgetown’s flagship, in draft sales.
Since its 2003 release – the same year Manny Chao and Roger Bialous founded the brewery – Manny’s has been exclusively available on draft and only in Washington. It accounts for 15% of Georgetown’s output and 40% of its draft volume. About 900 bars and restaurants in Seattle alone sell Manny’s, which accounted for 16,340 barrels of Georgetown’s 2021 output, according to its website.
“It’s a way of thanking all the bars and restaurants that have supported us from the very beginning,” Bartels said. “If you want Manny’s, you have to go to a bar or restaurant to get it – you can’t just go to the store to get it. Just being a good partner to all the bars and restaurants that have supported us throughout the years is important.”
A point against selling Manny’s in package is that its style isn’t particularly trendy at the moment. Year-to-date through October 30, dollar sales of craft pale ales have declined -6.1%, outpacing the segment (-5.3%), compared to the same time last year. Craft pale ales account for 5.37% of all craft beer dollars in the off-premise, paling in comparison to IPAs at 44.5%.
“Pale ales are just not a strong category,” Bartels said, adding that Manny’s has a lot of built-up affection with local drinkers. “It was a gateway beer for a lot of people. We’re going to be 20 years old next year, and so Manny’s was, for a lot of people, their first introduction to craft beer and what craft beer could be.”
Georgetown sells about 1,800 growlers of Manny’s each month from its taproom, which is the only way for locals to enjoy it at home – except for one canning run Georgetown did in 2020 to raise funds for service industry employees who were unable to work during the pandemic-driven, on-premise shutdowns. The brewery raised $450,000 for a United Way fund to support local bar and restaurant staff, Bartels said.
Growlers are a large part of Georgetown’s to-go sales from its taproom. Drinkers buy about 2,000 each week from the brewery’s supply of pre-filled growlers, which are stable for roughly two weeks thanks to Georgetown’s pressurized filling system.
“Because we were draft only for so long, that was the only way we could get it into customers’ hands,” Bartels said. “It first started out with people showing up with their growlers asking to get them filled and then it just snowballed.”
Georgetown’s footprint is dense, only consisting of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana, which it only recently entered because Hayden Beverage Company, which sells its offerings in Idaho, expanded to Montana.
“It’s more important for the owners to be deep rather than wide,” Bartels said. “If we’re going to sell 130,000 barrels, why can’t we sell it here? We don’t need to sell it far away.
“You can’t guarantee freshness,” she continued. “You can’t guarantee quality once you get to a certain spot.”
Georgetown operates with a completely cold supply chain, as it does not pasteurize its beer, and deliberately keeps wholesalers’ inventory low to ensure freshness.
“We put a 90-day limit on draft beer, 60 days for fresh hops or anything that’s a little more volatile, but our beer is kept cold,” Bartels said. “Our deal with our distributor is that they take it in refrigerated trucks and they keep it cold, so it’s not something that sits around.
“Fresh beer is our ultimate goal,” she continued. “You can sometimes go to a grocery store and find our cans and they’re literally three days old, so there’s not a lot of inventory that sits. I think we do about two weeks’ worth of inventory at our distributor. We manage it and make sure they’re not sitting on a lot of old stock.”