Baton Rouge craft beer brewers want ability to sell directly to stores

Another round of trying to change the La archaic liquor regulations in regards to distribution. Hope as a more unified voice with Louisiana Craft Brewers Guild this can finally happen.


BREWING SUCCESS: Southern Craft Brewing co-founder Joe Picou says “the biggest positive impact on the craft beer industry” in Louisiana would be eliminating the law requiring the state’s 35-plus craft breweries to sign exclusive contracts with distribution companies


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After Prohibition, the American beer industry was divided into three tiers: manufacturers, distributors and retailers. Louisiana brewers must sign an exclusive contract with a distributor to get their beer into a given market.

In Baton Rouge, the dominant wholesalers are Crescent Crown, whose best-known brands are made by MillerCoors, and Mockler Beverage, which distributes Budweiser. While distributors want all of their brands to succeed, the large Budweiser logo on the front of Mockler’s Reiger Road headquarters leaves a distinct impression about the company’s priorities.

For many years Mockler only sold Budweiser products, but over the past decade has worked with many local breweries. Mockler General Manager Chris Davis says the company works hard to market, sell and deliver their beers, leaving brewers to focus on what they do best.

Contracts with brewers are hard to break, something Davis argues is necessary since distributors put “blood, sweat and tears” into building those brands. He’s had a few breakups, he says, but the decisions usually are mutual.

“No ugly divorces,” is how co-owner Patrick Mockler describes it. “They have expectations of us, and we have expectations of them. The system works very well.”

But the power relationship between a distributor and small brewer is far from even. Most Louisiana breweries are exclusively with “the Bud network” or “the MillerCoors network,” says Karlos Knott, president of Bayou Teche Brewing in Arnaudville.

Louisiana’s beer franchise law requires a dissatisfied brewer to give 30 days notice before attempting to terminate a contract. The distributor then gets 90 days to create and implement a plan to fix the problem, at which point other issues may crop up—starting the cycle over again. The protracted process, say those who want the law changed, is problematic for craft beer industry that’s largely seasonal, and trends among beer aficionados change quickly.

Knott, president of the Louisiana Craft Beer Guild, stresses he has good relationships with his distributors, but acknowledges some are better than others. The real concern, he says, is if a distributor gets mad at you, then they may not want to sell your beer at all.

“The distributor has most of the cards,” Knott says. “They can determine what gets into the market, and what doesn’t get into the market. They can determine what gets delivered and how it gets delivered, or not.”

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