Tuesday, May 1, 2018

A Good Problem

I noted in my last post that Atlanta's New Realm Brewing is buying Green Flash's closed Virginia brewery.  Yesterday, Good Beer Hunting had more details on the rationale behind New Realm's move.  New Realm is struggling to keep up with demand for its beer.  Only four months after its opening, the brewery is already at capacity.  According to the article:

"(T)he business (New Realm) has struggled to keep up with demand for its distributed products and has a good chance of hitting Georgia’s own-premise to-go sales cap of 3,000 barrels in its first year. New Realm is, on average, selling around 50 barrels a week out of its taproom between packaged and draft offerings, and has at times stopped selling growlers and crowlers of beer to ensure its taplines stay full. And all this before the spring and summer, which are traditionally the busiest sales times for beer in the U.S."

The former Green Flash brewery comes with a 100,000 barrel capacity - which must be in near turn-key condition - and should solve New Realm's immediate supply problem.  New Realm plans to ship most of the beer back to Georgia, but it does plan to open a tasting room at the facility and distribute locally from the Virginia location, unknown points when the transaction was announced two weeks ago.  In addition, New Realm is expanding its Atlanta brewery and had previously purchased land in Charlotte, North Carolina for a planned expansion, but due to the unseen opportunity in Virginia the plans for North Carolina have been delayed.

The New Realm's story is good news for craft beer, especially when stories of closures and over saturation dominate beer media.  New Realm appears to have the capital and management to take advantage of opportunities, which is rare and fortunate for a new brewery.  I want to try New Realm's beers when I visit Atlanta but am not looking forward to wrestling with the 5,000 people that visit the brewery on any give Saturday (is this even possible for a brewery/restaurant?), and I know I won't wait in line an hour wait for a pint of beer.  

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