Deschutes Brewery to Expand Distribution Footprint

Deschutes Brewery recently announced that it will to broaden its sales footprint in 2014 with new distribution in Ohio and Kentucky. The brewery will open the new territories beginning in January.

The country’s fifth-largest craft beer company announced Tuesday that it signed a wholesale agreement with Heidelberg Distributing Company’s Rampant Brands Division, which services Ohio’s 88 counties as well as retailers in the “wet” towns of Kentucky.

“With 11 million future fans and more than 22,000 licensed retail accounts, we knew moving into Ohio would be a huge undertaking,” Stacy Denbow, Deschutes expansion manager, said in a press release. “Partnership with an expert company like Heidelberg’s Rampant Division gave us a great opportunity to launch in Ohio, as well as extending into the great Commonwealth of Kentucky.”

Rampant — which also sells beer from notable craft breweries Anchor Brewing, Brooklyn Brewery and Victory Brewing, among others — will initially distribute Deschutes Brewery’s core offerings: Mirror Pond Pale Ale, Black Butte Porter, Inversion IPA and its spring seasonal, Red Chair Northwest Pale Ale.

Deschutes’ expansion into Ohio and Kentucky follows its entry into several other markets, including Chicago, Philadelphia, South Dakota, Iowa and Nebraska, earlier this year. The addition of new brewing capacity has allowed Deschutes to expand into these new markets. The Oregon-based brewery installed 10 new 1,300-barrel fermentation tanks and about 105,000 barrels of new capacity, bringing total production capacity to 460,000 barrels annually. Deschutes produced 252,000 barrels in 2012.