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LETTER FROM NORTH AMERICA
Taverns vs. Taprooms: A Battle Brews! Stephen Beaumont
In early October arrived news of the development of a Victory Brewing outpost in downtown Philadelphia. The planned 14,000 square foot facility, which will feature a brewery, kitchen and taproom, will be built on Benjamin Franklin Parkway in the city’s Logan Square neighbourhood and is expected to open in late 2020.
Reaction from the Downington, Pennsylvania-based brewery’s fans was swift and broadly enthusiastic. And from the city’s publicans, well, much less so. Responding to a post I made on Facebook, prominent craft beer bar owners Chris Black, Fergus Carey and Michal Roper, respectively of Denver’s Falling Rock, Philadelphia’s Fergie’s Pub and Chicago’s Hopleaf, waded into the comments with varying degrees of criticism.
Observed Black, “Bar and restaurant owners aren’t going to carry (a brewery’s) beer if (the brewery) opens a satellite taproom nearby; it’s just that simple.” Added Roper, “That this has become an issue is not due to an evil plot by breweries to destroy taverns (but) due to the finite and not growing customer base for beer.” Much more concise in his comments, Carey stated simply, “More breweries in the bar business. Bullshit!”
While the Victory issue is but one instance of the animosity between bar owners and breweries with taprooms, it is by no means an isolated one. In fact, it demonstrates a relationship that’s been showing signs of strain since at least 2016. While I had been hearing rumblings of discontent since then, if not earlier, it was while presenting at a beverage hospitality conference in San Diego in very early 2017 that I encountered the first significant wave of bar owner complaints. “How can I compete on price with a production facility?,” questioned one frustrated multi-unit
bar manager, while another complained of being “surrounded” by brewery taprooms all experiencing their moment in the hipster sun. Other operators voiced similar concerns.
Since then, of course, the situation has only grown more critical, with new breweries opening across North America at a rapacious rate – some 7,500 now in the United States, with another thousand in Canada and several hundred in the far less mature Mexican market – and existing breweries, including those owned by major multinational brewing companies, opening new taprooms. Coupled with the declining growth of craft beer, this proliferation has bar owners justly worried. On the flip side, it could also be true that the popularity of taprooms is beginning to wane. For although die-hard beer enthusiasts hail the reliability of the beers and cleanliness of the draught lines and glassware at taprooms, for those less adamant about their beer service, the sameness of such places might be growing a bit tiresome.
The ambiance of most brewery taprooms will be familiar to anyone who has frequented more than a couple of them: industrial chic décor; plenty of exposed building materials; cool and drafty confines; Ikea barstools; brewery merch or assorted beer-related bric-a-brac hanging from the walls. Functional, yes, but not necessarily comfortable or atmospheric.
So while the craft beer faithful will no doubt continue to patronize taprooms, I wonder how long it might be before the novelty wears off for casual beer drinkers and they retreat en masse to bars, taverns and pubs. At which point brewery owners are going to need to figure out a way to replace their lost beer sales, presumably through bars the owners of which might not be quite so welcoming. There are, of course, mitigating factors
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to be figured into all of this. First, some brewery operators have already anticipated the pushback from bar owners and planned accordingly, sometimes severely limiting their hours or offerings, or opening in areas not already well-serviced by bars, or providing neighbouring bars with special, exclusive releases.
Secondly, while the Hopleaf’s Roper is correct that overall beer consumption is stagnant or declining, and even craft beer growth is dropping off, the downtown population of many cities is growing at a healthy clip. Meaning that even if individual beer consumption is down, a growing population density means that the city-specific beer sales could still be on the rise. And finally, a degree, if not a great deal of the trendiness of taprooms is based upon the ‘special release’ culture of the moment, which has drinkers constantly chasing what is new and different. If that trend begins to wane, as some have predicted, then a drop off in the popularity of the taproom would seem sure to follow. However it all plays out, one thing is certain: So long as the status quo is upheld, relations between bar owners and breweries with taprooms are sure to grow more fraught and acrimonious.
Stephen Beaumont
A professional beer writer for 29 years, Stephen Beaumont is an award-winning author or co-author of thirteen books on beer, including his latest, Will Travel for Beer: 101 Remarkable Journeys Every Beer Lover Should Experience. He is also the co-author (with Tim Webb) of the recently released Pocket Beer Book, 3rd Edition, and 2016’s fully-revised and updated second edition of The World Atlas of Beer, as well as author of The Beer & Food Companion. His new website is beaumontdrinks.com and he can be followed on both Twitter and Instagram @BeaumontDrinks
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