Critical Mass: Building a Craft-beer Destination
From grassroots campaigns at the local level to coordinated efforts in the statehouse and governor’s office, the has positioned itself as a hot spot for craft beer and for craft brewers in just a few short years.
representatives from Deschutes Brewery (Bend, Oregon) were scheduled to formally announce the decision to locate its new East Coast brewery in Roanoke, Virginia, brewery President Michael Lalonde was walking along a downtown street when a woman popped her head out from a barber shop and asked if he needed a haircut.
“Which is funny because I don’t have any hair,” Lalonde says. “So I said ‘no,’—i was with our CFO at the time—and the woman asked ‘are you guys from Deschutes?’ I said ‘we are,’ and she ran out, jumped in the air, wrapped her arms and legs around me and said, ‘Oh my god! I’m so excited you guys are coming here!’”
While not exactly typical, this memorable encounter illustrates the type of enthusiastic reception that helped push Roanoke to the top of the list when Deschutes was deciding on a location for its new East Coast production brewery, which is slated to break ground in 2019.
In addition to Deschutes, Ballast Point Brewing Co. (San Diego, California) also recently announced plans to locate a new production brewery in the Roanoke Valley. Stone Brewing (Escondido, California) is set to open a new brewery, packaging hall, and Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens restaurant in Richmond, Virginia, and Green Flash Brewing (San Diego, California) has chosen Virginia Beach as the site for its new 58,000-square-foot brewery, tasting room, and beer garden.
Like other craft brewers looking to solidify their distribution footprint in the eastern and southeastern United States, De- schutes’s decision to build a location east of the Mississippi River was largely driven by economic considerations. Reducing the costs associated with shipping beer across the country in refrigerated trucks is a big one, says Lalonde, as is increasing overall production capacity and positioning itself closer to eastern markets.
Deschutes began its search with a list of about 1,000 locations, which it then whittled down to about 100 prospects, Lalonde says. Brewery representatives visited between thirty-five and fifty sites in all, including in Tennessee, South Carolina, and several sites in North Carolina— where New Belgium, Oskar Blues, and Sierra Nevada have all recently established eastern outposts.
When evaluating possible locations, the site itself and the water quality were primary considerations, Lalonde says, as were transportation logistics and proximity to market, state liquor laws, waste-treatment capacity, and how friendly state and local officials were toward a brewery looking to locate within their area.
But many cities can satisfy these requirements. What makes some—such as in North Carolina and, increasingly, in Virginia—more appealing than others for a craft brewer looking to set up shop?
A lot of it comes down to culture. Beer is a social beverage, and many of these breweries have built their brands around a strong sense of place and community engagement. A craft brewery isn’t just a building where beer is made, packaged, and shipped out. Tasting rooms are where people gather to eat and drink, to socialize, and to get a closer look at how their beer is made and who’s making it. A strong local beer culture reinforces and complements a vibrant, active social scene.
Several years ago, however, very few out-of-state breweries, if any, would have even considered Virginia. That is until the summer of 2012, when Senate Bill 604 passed, and brewers were allowed to sell beer for onsite consumption for the first time. It was a key piece of legislation that helped lower the barrier to entry for the many smaller craft breweries that