re: RIP Southern Craft

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Craft opened in 2015, before Parish distribution was good, before Jucifer came out and way before it went into distro, before Great Raft had significant distro in BR, before Holy Roller came out, and before Tin Roof revitalized and started putting out Voodoo. In 2015 brewing local beer was enough, but in the couple years after that it quickly stopped being enough bc of all of those changes. And SC never adapted

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Southern Craft didn't close because of overcrowding of the market. It closed because it got hamstrung by the big distributors, and because they weren't selling the beer people wanted to buy, on top of all the COVID restrictions.

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I'm going to have to say that both of these statements sound great, but I pretty much completely disagree with both. I don't believe a lot of the timeline from the first statement is correct. Even if so, it doesn't matter. Southern Craft was a classic example of "I like to drink and eat," so I should open a restaurant or bar. Just because you can brew beer doesn't mean you have any business opening a brewery. "Selling the beer people want to buy" is called.. umm.. being a brewery! Anything else is called a pissing money away hobby. When they distributed an average beer, it was an accomplishment. I met a few of the people associated, and they were nice people. Money doesn't care who is nice. I hate seeing businesses close, but I also don't have pity for businesses that don't constantly try to identify weaknesses and try to be better. Not sure Southern Craft did that once.

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Or a Tin Roof that's started by a couple of businessmen and hired a brewer.

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they started with their home brew recipes which were disastrous. They have com along though. it pays to have daddys money(tin roof, walkons, pluckers, etc)

Hate to see a small business go away, but there beer didn't stand out at all and was below average. In the very competitive craft beer marketplace, that won't work.

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And until the 3 tier system is done away with we wont ever have the brewery presence other states do where someone can literally brew in a 800sf storage unit and distribute themselves.

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Pelican craft is the next best thing to this option, however. They are very brewery friendly, and not beholden to the macro beer like the other distributors.

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yea idk why he said it is hard, you just get the Microbrewer permit alongside the AG permit. And give up your Brewers permit. And until the 3 tier system is done away with we wont ever have the brewery presence other states do where someone can literally brew in a 800sf storage unit and distribute themselves.

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I think this approach saved Crying Eagle. They pivoted pretty quickly once it was clear COVID restrictions would be in place for a while and are doing very well now that they can serve wine and liquor along with their beer. The beer itself is continuing to improve as well which is nice.