With the summer selling season in the rearview, many craft brewers have shifted their focus back to distribution expansion, announcing new wholesaler agreements across the country.
The Massachusetts Beverage Alliance (MBA) today announced two new partnerships with Morrisville, Vt.-based Lost Nation Brewing and Cambridge, Mass.-based Bantam Cider. Both brands will now be available, statewide, throughout MBA’s network of five wholesale partners which includes Atlas Distributing, Burke Distributing, Colonial Wholesale Beverage, Commercial Distributing Company and Merrimack Valley Distributing Company. Lost Nation, one of Vermont’s newest craft breweries, will initially offer three styles — a gose, a farmhouse golden and a blond — on draft throughout the Bay State. Bantam Cider will expand distribution of its WunderKind and Roja ciders.
Out west, L. Knife & Son Co., which is based in Massachusetts, has acquired the Southern California distribution rights to San Francisco’s Triple Voodoo Brewing. El Dorado Distributing had been distributing Triple Voodoo beer in Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside and San Diego Counties. L. Knife purchased the El Dorado business and rolled it into what is now known as Craft Beer Guild Distributing of California.
Triple Voodoo, which is currently operates as a gypsy brewery, plans to open its own, 10-barrel brewhouse facility in San Francisco by the end of the year. Brewery owner Greg Kitchen anticipates 2013 production volume to be near 1,000 barrels.
Meanwhile, in the Midwest, Chicago’s River North Distributing has signed a distribution agreement with Bloomington, Ind.-based Upland Brewing Company. An initial selection of Upland’s top selling beers — Upland Wheat and Upland Dragonfly IPA — will hit taps and retail shelves in Chicago starting in October.