Looking to capitalize on Pennsylvanias’ fond memories of Jersey Shore vacations, Cape May Brewing will expand its Keystone State distribution this year.
The Cape May, New Jersey-headquartered brewery will begin selling its products in the counties surrounding Pittsburgh, Scranton and Harrisburg.
“We’re going to be growing in PA – we have these new offerings,” Cape May president Frank Stempin told Brewbound. “We have the opportunity to sell to the people that actually love the product already. They know about it. They’re already down the shore.”
The expansion will make Cape May’s presence in Pennsylvania “not exactly statewide,” but will be incremental to the Philadelphia-area counties where it is already distributed, he said.
“It gets us to the major population centers,” Stempin added.
Cape May has selected three Molson Coors-aligned wholesalers to expand distribution:
- Ace Distributing in Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Dauphin, Lebanon, Cumberland, York, Adams, Franklin, and Fulton counties;
- LT Verrastro Inc. in Wayne, Pike, Monroe, Carbon, Luzerne, and Lackawanna counties;
- And Wilson-McGinley in Beaver, Butler, Armstrong, Indiana, Washington, Allegheny, Westmoreland, Greene, and Fayette counties.
The brewery tested its new markets with a soft launch in 2022, with flagship Cape May IPA selling well on draft and in package, prompting an expansion to the broader flagship portfolio. Drinkers in the test markets already had positive associations with the brand and its namesake from visits to Cape May and other Jersey Shore destinations, Stempin said.
“When we soft launched with our core products [last year], we found out that they actually enjoyed those products just as much,” he said. “We were able to bring a sense of the beach back to them. We were able to bring a sense of vacation.”
Cape May’s core offerings include Cape May IPA, Always Ready hazy pale ale, Cape May White, Devil’s Reach Belgian-style ale, Honey Porter and Longliner lager.
Next month, Cape May will introduce its first beer variety 12-pack, which includes Cape May IPA, Longliner, Cape May White and Always Ready.
“It’ll make it even easier for individuals to try our products,” Stempin said. “If not buying a full 6-pack of one of our cores, they can try a variety pack and now they have an opportunity to try multiple products, so we can get into more people’s vision.”
To support the push into the Keystone State, Cape May promoted Scott McIntyre to wholesale market manager in September. He will manage the brewery’s relationships with its distributors in Pennsylvania and Delaware, as well as its connections to key on- and off-premise accounts.
Stempin joined Cape May in 2020 as chief financial officer before becoming chief operating officer. He was promoted to president in September and took the reins to day-to-day operations from co-founder Ryan Krill, who now oversees the brewery’s strategy and vision.
2022 in Review
Cape May wasn’t immune from the problems that plagued craft beer in 2022. Nationwide, the segment declined -4.7% in dollar sales and -8.6% in case sales at off-premise chain retailers tracked by market research firm IRI. New Jersey is an independent market, where beverage-alcohol sales are confined to licensed liquor stores.
“2022 was a tough year for the craft industry in general and New Jersey specifically,” Stempin said.
Garden State craft beer volume was “down over 10%,” but he cautioned that some estimates place the decline higher.
“We were down about 5% for the year, and that’s off of a record year of 2021, where we’ve been growing at 40-50%,” Stempin said. “But in 2023, we’re expecting to go back to that double-digit growth again.”
Cape May produced about 43,000 barrels of beer in 2022, Stempin said. The brewery has recorded double-digit increases in volume since 2018, according to the Brewers Association’s (BA) May/June 2022 issue of the New Brewer:
- +75% in 2018, to 16,269 barrels;
- +44% in 2019, to 23,419 barrels;
- +52% in 2020, to 35,653 barrels;
- +28% in 2021, to 45,806 barrels.
In 2023, Cape May will turn its beyond-beer focus away from hard seltzer and toward its sugar-based hard lemonade and malt-based hard tea offerings, “which were extremely successful last year,” Stempin said.
“We weren’t sure exactly how successful they were going to be, but they were so successful that we’ve furthered into those markets,” he added.
The hard tea and hard lemonade will be seasonally available, and Cape May expects to launch them in April ahead of the summer months. Cape May Hard Lemonade is 5% ABV and available on draft and in cans. Cape May Hard Tea is 4.5% ABV and available in can 6-packs.