Craft beer lovers in Virginia will once again be able to buy beer from Bell’s Brewery.
The Michigan craft brewery announced Wednesday that it will once again ship beer to the state, starting in about two weeks, after a nearly 21 month absence.
Bell’s will return to the Richmond area via Sheehan Family Companies subsidiary Specialty Beverage of Virginia, and will resume its wholesaler partnerships with Blue Ridge Beverage, Copa Wine Corporation, Hoffman Beverage Company, Hop and Wine Beverage, M. Price Distribution and Wendell Distributing in other territories in the state.
“We’re just super happy that a business solution was found for that Richmond territory, and we’re excited to be able to ship beer to the Commonwealth of Virginia again,” Bell’s Brewery founder and president Larry Bell told Brewbound.
In early 2019, Bell’s stopped shipping its beer to Virginia after the Reyes Beer Division subsidiary Premium Distributors of Virginia struck a deal to acquire Richmond, Virginia-based Loveland Distributing in October 2018, which had sold Bell’s products since 2015.
In the fallout from its retraction from the state, Bell’s had been involved in three different lawsuits in Virginia regarding wholesaler terminations. The Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority recently ruled that Bell’s and Salem, Virginia-based Blue Ridge Beverage could settle their dispute through arbitration.
“All parties involved are happy to resolve this matter amicably and welcome Bell’s back to Virginia,” the company said in the release.
Speaking to Brewbound, Bell acknowledged that “not all of those [legal proceedings] may go away.”
“But it would appear that at least two of the three will go away,” he said. “And really, this is a deal between Specialty and Premium. So it’s a deal between wholesalers that allows us to get back into the state.”
Specialty will service Amelia, Caroline, Charles City, Chesterfield, Dinwiddie, Goochland, Greensville, Hanover, Henrico, King and Queen, King William, New Kent, Nottoway, Powhatan, Prince George, Southhampton, Surry and Sussex counties.
Specialty will also offer coverage in the cities of Colonial Heights, Emporia, Franklin, Hopewell, and Petersburg.
At the time of Bell’s exit from Virginia in 2019, the state accounted for about 5% of Bell’s business.
“It’s certainly advantageous for us to be able to fill a pipeline here at the end of 2020,” Bell said. “Given the year it’s been, it will certainly help our numbers as we head to the end of the year.”
Among the products headed to Virginia will be flagship Two Hearted Ale, Bell’s Hazy IPA, and Light Hearted Ale, among others.
Bell said he’s excited to offer Virginians some new products from Bell’s portfolio that hadn’t previously been sold in the state.
For 2020, Bell’s is on pace to finish the year down 5%, so the company is looking to recapture that business. Bell acknowledged that business won’t come back overnight.
“We have some chain authorizations that we didn’t have before so that’ll be great, but also it’s gonna take some time to get back into some of those sets and chains and whatnot,” he said. “So we’ve got our work cut out for us, we’re ready to do that, get our people back in there and support our wholesalers to build that business back.”
Last month, Indianapolis-headquartered Monarch Beverages struck a deal to sell its business to Reyes. However, Bell’s was excluded from the sale; Monarch had sold about 200,000 case equivalents of Bell’s beer annually.
Bell told Brewbound last month that he sent non-binding letters to the brewery’s wholesalers last year to inform them that the company would not accept Anheuser-Busch InBev, Molson Coors or the Reyes Beer Division as successor wholesalers should any of them sell their businesses.
Bell’s is in the process of conducting due diligence on wholesaler partners in Indiana and an announcement could come within the next week on its future plans in the state.
“This is the full time job of craft brewers these days — doing due diligence on wholesaler deals, it seems, but you know we’re getting through Indiana pretty well,” he said. “There were just a lot of players for us to have to interview down there.”