Excited to see their beer coming closer, would love a Rochester proper taproom too and hope they keep heading this direction..
A little interesting to me to see them complain about distribution. I remember years ago being surprised when a friend was raving about their beer and asked if I wanted to go down to the brewery for one of their 201X IPA releases. I'd only had the stuff on the shelves at Wegmans up to that point, and it wasn't bad but I wasn't impressed either. Didn't seem like a place you drive a couple hours to pick up a new release from. But the stuff they had in the taproom was way, way better and I became a fan from that point on.
I'm all for the more taproom approach to growth over increased distribution without a local presence. I've been saying for years craft breweries that operate as local watering holes are sustainable indefinitely, everyone trying to be regional or nationally distributing breweries is not. That's pretty obvious to everyone at this point, I think. But Upstate's approach to distribution always seemed weird. They never sent their more well received and hype generating releases in packaged format into distribution. Just a few brands that didn't seem to fare too well. I always wondered if that hurt their growth and reputation more than helping it, because some of their taproom only stuff is up there with the best I've had in the state. But you almost never hear anyone talk about them being on that level with breweries like Other Half, Mortalis, Prison City, etc. First impressions definitely matter.
Excited to see their beer coming closer, would love a Rochester proper taproom too and hope they keep heading this direction..
A little interesting to me to see them complain about distribution. I remember years ago being surprised when a friend was raving about their beer and asked if I wanted to go down to the brewery for one of their 201X IPA releases. I'd only had the stuff on the shelves at Wegmans up to that point, and it wasn't bad but I wasn't impressed either. Didn't seem like a place you drive a couple hours to pick up a new release from. But the stuff they had in the taproom was way, way better and I became a fan from that point on.
I'm all for the more taproom approach to growth over increased distribution without a local presence. I've been saying for years craft breweries that operate as local watering holes are sustainable indefinitely, everyone trying to be regional or nationally distributing breweries is not. That's pretty obvious to everyone at this point, I think. But Upstate's approach to distribution always seemed weird. They never sent their more well received and hype generating releases in packaged format into distribution. Just a few brands that didn't seem to fare too well. I always wondered if that hurt their growth and reputation more than helping it, because some of their taproom only stuff is up there with the best I've had in the state. But you almost never hear anyone talk about them being on that level with breweries like Other Half, Mortalis, Prison City, etc. First impressions definitely matter.