NEWS & OPINION FEATURE
HURRY UP AND WAIT Supply chain woes complicate local beer production, distribution BY KARIE SIMMONS
You belly up to a bar, order your favorite local craft beer, grab the ice cold aluminum can and push in the tab to crack it open — tssss kr-pop. For the consumer, it’s pretty simple. But for that can of beer, its journey was a little more difficult, possibly even treacherous in the times since COVID-19 struck, as supply chain woes and labor shortages are causing hiccups behind the scenes of what was once a straightforward process of brewing, packaging and distributing craft beer. Some local breweries are having trouble receiving regular deliveries of key ingredients and supplies, especially from overseas, while others are hitting snags at the packaging stage due to a global aluminum can shortage. While feeling these effects trickle down, distributors are also dealing with their own set of woes when it comes to vehicle and equipment delays. Rising prices across the board and general unpredictability have led some to rearrange their logistics and plan for the worst, transforming the craft beer industry into an industry of hurry up and wait.
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In the breweries
NoDa Brewing Company orders its beer’s ingredients and the supplies to package it from all around the world. According to head brewer and co-founder Chad Henderson, the majority of NoDa hops come from the Pacific Northwest, but they also get some from Europe. Their grains — the barley, wheat, rye and oats needed for beer — come from the America’s Midwest, Germany and England. Henderson said his team has spent 10 years perfecting a rhythm for when to place their typical order, but that rhythm can now be thrown off by weeks or months at a time. It helps that NoDa’s suppliers can usually give them a heads up if they foresee an issue, or suggest ordering more if there will be a long wait between the next shipment, but the team as to stay on their toes. In some cases, suppliers have had to pivot by dipping into their own backstock or using a different
but similar brand of hops to fill the order. “The suppliers try to give us the best idea of arrival time, but they’re scratching their heads over it half the time too, because it’s not just getting it over to the U.S., it’s getting it on the trucks to then take it over to us because of either a personnel shortage or just no one in the docks to receive or load anything,” Henderson said. Maureen Wierzbicki, quality control and production manager at The Olde Mecklenburg Brewery, echoed that professional relationships with suppliers have been key to maintaining the brewery’s pace of production throughout the pandemic. “We have been able to work closely with our vendors to ensure materials are ordered in advance of long lead times, and with a safety stock necessary to flex with unforeseen production changes,” Wierzbicki said in an email to Queen City Nerve. What was once a pretty straightforward process is now complicated by several factors, forcing brewers to be more intentional with their decisions and find creative workarounds. In some cases, Henderson said NoDa has had to cancel batches and dump the beginning stages of a brew due to ingredient delays, essentially scrapping the brewing schedule. The brewery has also had delivery issues for the chemicals used to clean the tanks they put the beer in to ferment. “It’s not simply can you make the beer? It’s can you make the beer with what’s coming in?” Henderson said. “And do we have stuff coming behind that that’s going to allow for us to keep making it? And is it going to move at a rate in which it’s not going to back stock into the avenues we want? “Beer is very perishable,” he continued. “So when you’re having to backstock everything on top of it, it just makes it more complicated to make sure that we get the product out and get it consumed in a good method. And you’re not trying to catch up, but you’re also not trying to overstock yourself at the same time.” In other words, brewers are trying to hit the sweet spot on a moving target.
From kegs to cans
Jason Alexander of Free Range Brewing said his brewery isn’t having issues sourcing raw materials because more than 90% of their ingredients come from North Carolina as part of their mission to support local agriculture. “We’re not in the category of breweries feeling the pinch from the tightness of raw materials
coming from Europe, but on the flipside, anybody that packages beer right now is feeling challenges in cost increase on the packaging side of it with can price increases and fuel surcharges being implemented again,” he said. “Any logistics with packaging materials are definitely more volatile in our industry right now.” Free Range wasn’t canning beer prior at all to the pandemic, but like most breweries, the initial shutdown of taprooms forced a shift toward packaging beer in order to survive. They now work with Greensboro-based Tap Hopper Canning, which comes to the brewery on “canning days” to package their beer. Alexander said Free Range builds supply chain delays into its brew schedule and plans for NODA BREWING’S CHAD HENDERSON AT WORK. a more conservative schedule PHOTO COURTESY OF NODA BREWING given the unpredictability of aluminum can supply. “We tend to be on the back burner a lot,” he said. “It pushed us into structure that needed to “So if there’s any sort of supply issue with either happen no matter what,” he said. “Instead of being getting any aluminum or the aluminum stock itself, on our timeline, it was on a timeline out of our we usually are the ones that will feel it first because control. But it was a good thing overall that we we’re really low on the priority list compared to moved into that structure because it’s helped us Monster Energy drinks or whatever.” facilitate new growth.” At the start of the pandemic, Henderson said NoDa Brewing shifted its production from 50% cans The distributors Free Range handles their own distribution, as and 50% kegs to approximately 95% cans, which of the majority of their cans are sold in their taprooms course meant having to nearly double down on can on North Davidson Street and Camp North End. The orders in an already stressed aluminum market. That ratio has since changed to 65% cans and rest goes out wholesale to area bars, restaurants and 35% kegs, but Henderson doubts it will completely bottle shops. Most of NoDa’s beer goes on its own trucks, level out due to a decrease in the demand for draft though Henderson said distribution companies do beer. Unfortunately for breweries, it’s currently more pick up a small amount. “There’s still hiccups that happen with that, expensive to can beer than it is to keg it, as every piece of the can costs money — from the label to and you would have to delay pick-ups and whatnot the lid to the staff required to do the canning. And before they go off to the hubs to then get distributed out to the bottle shops and can shops and things of unlike kegs, cans are not reusable. On top of that, Henderson said cans used to that nature,” he said. “But for the most part, for us, package beer come from companies that also supply that part has been affected a little less than it is major soda and energy drink companies, meaning getting the actual supplies.” Taylor McDermott of Artisan Beverages, an competition is fierce. independent Charlotte-based distributor, said
