Made in Maine
Those
words mean something to people. Whether it’s because of L.L.
Bean’s solid reputation for good craftsmanship and standing
behind their products, the quirky natural toothpastes from
Tom’s of Maine, or just the love of lobsters, Maine has a
great reputation in New England and beyond.
“The further
away you get from Maine,” says Bryan Smith, “there’s sort of
a mystique about being from Maine. People think of you as a
quality product, time-tested. They think of hand-crafted,
tried and true practices.”
Smith is the
president of Casco Bay Brewing, in Portland. He sells his
beer in Maine, of course, but he’s also starting his second
year in the Massachusetts market. “We’re really going to
start pushing a bit harder,” he said. “Massachusetts is a
competitive market and you have to have someone in the
street.”
There are five
Maine brewers in the Massachusetts market, along with two
contract brewers (see sidebar on next page), and they all do
fairly well, but it does take some work. Tom Fucci, national
sales director for Bar Harbor-based Atlantic Brewing, knows
it’s a competitive market in Massachusetts. “Can I continue
to grow in this market?” he asked. “I think I’m up against
it. It’ll be tough. We can maintain, but to see
sky-rocketing growth? There’s good quality beer in
Massachusetts, good local breweries, and Magic Hat is doing
well. But I’m in the mind-frame that a rising tide lifts all
boats.”
If it’s so
tough, why do Maine brewers come here? Real simple reasons,
the best ones. “That’s where all the people are,” said David
Geary, the head of the eponymous D.L. Geary Brewing in
Portland. “There’s 1.3 million people in Maine, and there’s
over 6 million in Massachusetts.”
Geary’s been in
the Massachusetts market since 1987, the year Mass Bay
started brewing Harpoon. “We had some distribution problems
when the distributors started consolidating,” said Geary.
“We had a tough time two years ago; we didn’t have a
distributor for a brief time, and had to do some scrambling.
Now we’re with East Coast Beverage, they’re small,
aggressive, and we’ve had triple-digit growth ever since we
went with them.”
Smith agreed
with Geary about where the people are. “The population is so
much greater,” Smith he said, but added, “The upper three
(New England) states are very loyal to their local
companies. We don’t even try to sell in Vermont or New
Hampshire; Long Trail has a hard time in Maine. But
Massachusetts people are a bit more open to seeing what’s
out there, and they’re somewhat more affluent. Maine’s more
blue collar.”
Bill Perna is
the head of a new contract brewing operation in Maine,
Sparhawk Brewers; their Sparhawk Golden is brewed at Casco
Bay’s facility. He was dragged into the Massachusetts and is
glad it happened. “We’re brand new,” he explained. “We just
celebrated our first year in business by rolling out in
Massachusetts with Tim Collins at East Coast Beverage. We’re
getting a fantastic reception down there, just like Tim
promised.
“He tried our
beer up in Maine,” Perna continued, “and said he really
liked it. I was just trying to build the brand in Maine. But
Massachusetts is where the people who like micros are, Tim
said. And my sales director, Danika Jones, is kicking me
under the table: do this! Tim said, don’t worry about it,
you’ve got a great beer, just get it out there and sample.
We did it, and we’re getting 6O case drops at stores, we’ve
got stores in Massachusetts that are buying more than stores
in Maine.”
Perna’s not the
only Maine brewery with an explosive brand in Massachusetts.
Shipyard’s been in the Massachusetts market for years, since
1993, and their Export Ale flagship is their best-seller
here. But they also have the Sea Dog brand they bought out a
few years ago, and sales manager Bruce Forsley said that the
“fastest-growing brand, probably in all markets, is the Sea
Dog Blueberry Ale, and that’s with no effort on our part at
all. The horse is out of the barn, someone go catch up! We
were up 1OO% with Sea Dog in 2OO4, and Blueberry was half of
that growth; Sea Dog was up 62% in Massachusetts. I don’t
know if it’s coming from the popularity of the flavored
vodkas right now, but we’re not asking, either.”
Forsley is also
optimistic about another brand Shipyard recently acquired
rights to, a brand most people in the Massachusetts market
will recognize immediately: Tremont. “Alan Pugsley,
Shipyard’s brewmaster and partner, was hired by Tremont as a
consultant when they opened,” Forsley said. “It’s come
full-circle: it’s now being brewed by Pugsley here in Maine.
We’re going to start advertising again, and hoping to find
someone interested in opening a Tremont brewpub in Boston.
Even after four years of neglect, the brand still has a lot
of recognition and positive image in
Massachusetts.”
Alan Pugsley
represents a lot of the image of Maine beers, of course.
He’s the Jonny Appleseed of New England brewing, the man who
spread Peter Austin brewhouses all over the land, and with
them, the gospel of English-style ales brewed with the
distinctive Ringwood yeast strain. Tremont, Geary’s and
Pugsley’s own Shipyard are (or were, in the case of the
Tremont brand) all Ringwood breweries, as well as a number
of other New England breweries.
Because of the
preponderance of these brands – Shipyard is by far the
largest craft brewer in Maine, and Geary’s is second – most
people think of traditional English ales when they think of
Maine beers. But that’s not the whole story. One of Maine’s
best-known breweries outside of New England is much smaller
than these two: Allagash, which does only Belgian-style
beers, including their flagship Allagash White.
“Our positioning
is different,” said Allagash founder Rob Tod. “We’re not
just brewing a couple Belgian styles along with other beers.
That’s what we’re known for, that’s what we are. There are
not many brewers that really focus on that niche. We’re
hopeful that it continues to grow, and it has. The last
couple years we’ve had great growth in Massachusetts. We
just keep adding taps and bottle placements. Anything can
happen, of course, but the indications are good. We can’t
keep up, and we’re ahead of our projections for the
year.”
Allagash has
been in Massachusetts for seven years, and it all started
almost by accident when Celis White, a witbier like
Allagash’s flagship, left the Massachusetts market. “Celis
had been purchased by Miller, who was withdrawing from the
state. Their distributor wanted to know if we’d like to come
in to replace Celis. We said ‘yeah, let’s try it’. Right
after we started, Craft Brewers Guild bought that
distributor, and they did a great job growing the brand.
Then the L.Knife Group bought CBG, and they have also done a
great job.
“What also
helped us there is Global Brewers Guild,” said Tod. “They
are not really a broker – they go out on the street and sell
a portfolio of beers. They are compensated by the volume of
beer sold. They do a phenomenal job for us in Philly and DC
as well. Between the Knife Group as a wholesaler and GBG as
our sales arm, Massachusetts has been a great
market.”
Tod’s also put
in a lot of work in the market personally, and it’s paid off
to the extent that Allagash has become more a local beer
than a Maine beer. “There’s a lot of value to our being
local,” he said. “We’re a local beer in Massachusetts, even
in DC and Philly. I get down to those markets a lot. I know
pourers in bar accounts and clerks in stores, so we’re seen
as a local beer even in those markets.”
Smith’s Casco
Bay brands don’t quite fit the mold either, brewing more
American-style ales and even a seasonal pilsner. “We don’t
do anything wacky, no crazy fruit beers,” said Smith. “I’m
not knocking anyone, it’s just not what we do. Four of the
top five brands in Maine are British-style ales, that’s what
people expect from Maine. When they see a new beer coming
out of Maine that isn’t a Ringwood British-style ale, that’s
exciting.”
He said four of
the top brands in Maine are British-style ales, and we’ve
only touched on three: Shipyard, Geary’s, and Sea Dog. The
fourth is Gritty’s, the beers from Portland’s landmark
Gritty McDuff’s brewpub, a favorite of mine for over ten
years. Gritty’s is also a Peter Austin/Ringwood brewery, and
so it’s natural that they chose Shipyard to brew their
bottled beers for them.
The other
brewery we’ve mentioned is Atlantic Brewing, located in Bar
Harbor. Their flagship is Bar Harbor Real Ale, but their
Coal Porter and Blueberry Ale are also strong sellers, and
their fourth beer, the spicy Ginger Ale, sells well too.
“Which is the best-selling product?” asked Tom Fucci. “One
of these four! Trying to predict it is
unpredictable.”
Atlantic is
apparently using the same sales model Rogue Ales does: sell
across the country, wherever people want the beer. “We’ve
sold 246 halves of Blueberry Ale in Ohio in five months, and
we just got another order,” Fucci said. “The Coal Porter
does well in Indiana, where Cole Porter was from.
“In Maine, Bar
Harbor Real Ale is our best seller, our flagship,” Fucci
said. “But the Blueberry sells better out-of-state. People
expect it to be a soft drink, but it’s subdued, not
overpowering. It’s made with real juice, not extract. The
Blueberry creates the interest out of state, kind of opens
the door, and then the other brands come in: ‘What else do
you have?’ they’ll ask.”
The Bar Harbor
connection doesn’t hurt. “Bar Harbor gets great name
recognition from the tourist trade, there’s an awareness,”
said Fucci. “It never ceases to amaze me. I was forty miles
west of Columbus, Ohio, and I stopped to ask directions. The
guy sees my Blueberry Ale shirt, and he says, “Oh, I had
that, in Bar Harbor.”
It’s not just
Bar Harbor, either. “From my experience traveling in the
East, there’s a notion that Maine brewers know how to make
good beer, whatever style you like, they’re all
well-crafted,” Fucci continued. “We’re known for sending out
good beers. It makes it a lot easier for me to get them to
listen to a pitch. ‘We already know Maine beer’s pretty
good.’ Maine’s got an image of being pure and pristine.
Makes my job pretty easy.”
Other Maine
brewers agree. “People think of you as a quality product,
time-tested,” said Casco Bay’s Smith. “They think of
hand-crafted, tried and true practices. They’ve had quality
products from Maine, and they believe it’s going to be good.
If we can get them to put it to their lips, we’ve got a
consumer.”
Forsley put it
simply. “What does Maine have to offer?” he asked. “The
ocean, lobsters, blueberries, and beer. There’s a real work
ethic here: people take pride in making their products. Made
in Maine carries some weight.”
Bill Perna
thinks it’s all about the beers. “A lot of the retailers
here tell me people come into the state and ask: what new
beers are there?” he said. “There are actually people coming
to Maine just to drink the beer. I’m trying to get the state
legislators to recognize that. The competition’s tough here,
so there’s good beer.”
“I don’t know if
anything really sets us apart,” said David Geary, with the
long view of 19 years in the business. “Made in Maine has a
certain amount of cachet. But once you get past the cachet,
you gotta have the stuff in the bottle. I don’t think as a
group we’re better than Massachusetts brewers. But if you
picked the top three brewers in New England, at least one
would be from Maine.”
Massachusetts
breweries continue to grow, the large and the small. But the
market, your customers, continue to be interested in beers
“from away”, as they say in Maine, and the brewers of those
beers will continue to be interested in your
market.
“We’re committed
to Mass for the foreseeable future,” Bruce Forsley said,
echoing the feelings of all the brewers I talked to. “We’re
not going anywhere. There’s a heavy traffic flow between
Massachusetts and the Maine ski areas and the coast. People
from Massachusetts like travelling to Maine, and Shipyard
reminds them of that connection. We see the loyalty in
western Massachusetts to the Vermont and New Hampshire
beers, and we see the same thing for us along 95, down to
the South Shore and the Cape.” He paused, and laughed. “Plus
I’m from Massachusetts! We’re not going
anywhere!”
Made in Maine.
Enjoyed in Massachusetts.
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brewers in the Massachusetts market D.L.Geary Shipyard Gritty Casco Allagash Atlantic Sparhawk |
