From brewery expansions to surging competition to Hollywood, the craft beer industry continues to prove its arrival in a variety of fashions.
Great Divide Brewing Co. is aiming to build an approximately $38.2 million brewery, which would be finished by 2015, according to a recent article in The Denver Post. The brewery is seeking a $1 million loan from the city to secure two blocks of land in the city’s River North neighborhood.
The new facility, which could eventually produce up to 250,000 barrels and create 29 full-time jobs, would be a dramatic expansion of Great Divide’s operation in Denver’s Ballpark neighborhood. The brewery currently produces about 32,000 barrels.
If the plans go into effect, Great Divide would become the largest brewery in Denver. The article says that Denver has already loaned the brewery $940,000 since 1996 for expansion and equipment.
As Great Divide continues to grow, so do a heap of other breweries across the country. This fact has naturally presented some difficult choices for retailers, who must find ways to cram hundreds of different styles onto their increasingly competitive shelves, according to an article on lohud.com.
“I’ve lost count of how much we have. It’s hundreds,” said Jim Kalinowski, a manager at the Elmsford Beer & Soda Discount Center. “The salesmen from the different distributors we have are always looking for us to take on more.”
This competition, spurred by the typical American desire for experimentation and variety, means that retailers have to be much more selective and willing to rotate offerings.
“If we don’t take it in and we start getting people asking for it, we’ll make room for it,” Kalinowski said.
Evidence of craft’s emergence, aside from massive expansions and increasingly competitive shelves, is its presence in Hollywood.
Yet while Drinking Buddies, the recently released craft beer-focused film, does star actress Olivia Wilde, Time.com reporter Anita Hamilton writes that the romantic comedy follows director Joe Swanberg’s “ultra-low-budget” style.
“I do suspect that the craft beer crowd is also a crowd that appreciates independent films,” Swanberg said. “That cultivation of taste naturally carries over into the kinds of movies they watch.”
According to the article, the movie celebrates the passion of the craft beer community and documents the industry’s efforts to slice into the sales of domestic beer. Some beer brands featured in the film include Chicago-based Half Acre, Three Floyds from Indiana and Michigan-based Founders and Bell’s.
“It wasn’t like a typical product placement where people were paying us to have their stuff displayed in the movie,” Swanberg said. “It was all just these breweries being cool and sending us stuff to be helpful.”