Trend in craft beer?

Green Flash is pulling out of 30+ states and focusing on states near their two production breweries. One of the reasons they gave is that they are having trouble competing with local beers in many states.

It sounds like Green Flash is giving in to the local neighborhood breweries in many states - they just don't sell enough beer in those states to justify stretching their distribution that much.

Portland has had a "neighborhood brewery" model for a long time. Most of the breweries in Oregon are local, for the most part, and many of them self distribute. Because people tend to drink local, out of state beers don't tend to do that well, except for exceptional BA stuff.

Modern Times is doing it differently. They are opening a brewery in Portland, and so they will be a local beer to the NW region. I'm thinking that this is going to be the trend for breweries. I think this is good for craft beer to have more breweries that are smaller, but lighter on their feet - can switch up beers and brew one offs and interesting derivatives of their different beers without having to worry about satisfying a distro contract in a state that is 1000 miles away.

Breweries like Oskar Blues, Dogfish Head, Lagunitas, and the like will find it harder to penetrate markets where breweries like Parish, Great Raft, and Gnarley Barley are popping up. With local alternatives like that, nobody is interested in those foreign beers.