Month: May 2016
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May 27th, 2016
This past Friday, May 27th, was Jim Koch’s 67th birthday and, as we do every year we take this week to revisit Jim and Boston Brewing. 2016 is a year in which we find Boston Beers in an unfamiliar position, a position which is driving pundits to question the future of the brewery. Recently, Berenberg, […]
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The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery
Nielsen numbers on the beer industry, ending May 7th, show beer case sales down once again to -1.3%. While year-to-date numbers still are positive, it is too early to say if these recent numbers will continue or not. No doubt one of the biggest contributors to the industries’ slow and negative growth in recent years, […]
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Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.
In the 1970s, the beer distributors west of the Mississippi River were represented by not only their state associations, but by a regional assocation, the Rocky Mountain Conference of Beer Distributor Associations, headquartered in Phoenix. The members met twice a year, frequently at a resort. At the end of the decade, the association’s winter meeting […]
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However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.
In the late 1980s, I joined Coast Distributors as the General Manager. Coast had been in existence for over 100 years, and still ownership was focused on the company’s long term plans. Immediately after joining the company, I led a committee to identify and design Coast’s long-term strategic growth plan. This strategy was centered on […]
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He was a wise man who invented beer.
Today, May 3rd, is the start of 2016’s Craft Brewers Conference in Philadelphia. This year’s convention has about 2,000 more registered attendees than last year’s convention, which was held in Portland. The 13,000 people in attendance will represent almost 900 exhibitors! An amazing number considering crafts represent only 12% of the US beer market. Without […]