📉 Onsite Brewery Sales -6% in Q1 2024

Brewbound Insiders are diving to at-the-brewery sales and highlights from Brewers Association staff economist Matt Gacioch’s first installment of a three-part series exploring onsite trends. 

Insiders are also: 

• Reading about Reyes’ first territory expansion since 2022;
• Finding out who Brooklyn Brewery has tapped as its VP of sales; 
• Reading why Jefferies isn’t concerned about Constellation’s consumer base;
• Getting perspective on hop acreage declines;
• And seeing who showed up at Asbury Park Brewery.

All five stories are exclusive to today’s Insider newsletter!

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Seasonal trends for onsite brewery sales have remained relatively consistent since January 2021, but “in real terms” – i.e. accounting for inflation – onsite sales continue to decline, according to Brewers Association (BA) staff economist Matt Gacioch, citing data from Arryved.

Gacioch explored overall onsite sales, draft and various category sales share changes and tab size trends in the first of a three-part dive into Arryved point-of-sale data through March 2024. The series is an attempt to better understand trends for the more than 70% of BA members who sell more than 25% of their volume onsite. 

The data includes reported sales from 555 locations that had beer sales in every month from January 2021 to March 2024, to help “ensure that gross sales numbers aren’t impacted by locations that opened, closed or had inconsistent operations throughout those years,” Gacioch wrote. 

He also explored trends of “top performers,” defined as the locations that had at least $100,000 in sales per year and had the highest positive change in gross sales from the period of April 2022-March 2023, to the period of April 2023-March 2024, with top performers’ sales growth ranging from +15% to +97%.

Insiders can dive into the full report, including draft performance, non-beer sales trends and average tabs and discounts.

Brewbound is excited to announce three additional speakers for the Brewbound Live business conference December 11 and 12 in Marina del Rey, California. 

The two-day conference will bring together leaders from all three tiers for business-focused conversations on driving the bev-alc industry forward, data presentations, networking and brand building at the Marina del Rey Marriott. 

Joining the speaker roster are:

• Arthur Moye, owner and CEO of Full Circle Brewing;
• Kaleigh Theriault, director of thought leadership, beverage alcohol vertical, NIQ;
• Brian “BK” Krueger, VP of business development and portfolio strategies, Bump Williams Consulting.

They join previously announced speakers include: 

• Natalie Cilurzo, co-owner, Russian River Brewing;
• Peter Skrbek, CEO, Deschutes Brewery;
• Lester Jones, chief economist and VP of analytics, National Beer Wholesalers Association;
• Jennifer Hauke, founder and president, Draftline Technologies.

Additional speakers will be announced in the coming weeks. Interested in speaking? Follow this link to see our speaker guidelines. 

In addition to the mainstage programming and networking parties, Brewbound Live will feature opportunities for one-to-one conversations between brewers and bev-alc brands and retail buyers from chains such as Whole Foods Market. Registered attendees will be considered for meetings with buyers, as space is limited. Find out more details here.

Brewbound Live tickets are available now.

Burial Beer Company’s Doug Reiser discusses the culmination of a three-year project to open a rooftop wine bar for the company’s Visuals wine brand in Asheville, North Carolina. 

For Burial, it’s about creating “immersive experiences” at its venues, Reiser explains. He discusses reviving once-abandoned spaces, how the company got into beer and then moved into the wine space and how much overlap there is between the company’s beer drinkers and wine consumers.

But first, Jess, Zoe and Justin also discuss the news, including the key pieces Anchor Brewing is going to need in its resurrection. They also discuss the effectiveness of Brooklyn Brewery’s European ad campaign, and pour over Voodoo Ranger’s scans trends, with some brands in decline and others still on the ascent.

Listen here or on your podcast platform of choice.