Just a month after Whole Foods opened its first brewpub in a Houston store the chain will initiate brewing operations in a new San Jose, Calif outlet set to open Dec 9, according to San Jose Mercury News. Recall, plans for the separate brewing facility behind the South Bay store appeared last summer (see CBN Vol 4, No 46). Led by a brewmaster who spent 6 years brewing at Russian River in Santa Rosa, the new brewpub expects to offer its beers solely on tap on site as “our intent isn’t to bottle our beers and get them out into the broad market,” the store’s beer mgr told the paper.

The march toward ever-smaller brewing cos targeting ever-smaller circles of influence continues. This time in Cleveland, where Cleveland Brewery hopes to work magic with its one-barrel system and bring back economic activity on 185th Street. It just opened a storefront draft-only nanobrewery there with goals to “support the street” and recall an era with more shops and cafes. “We’re not a gigantic operation like a Great Lakes or a Fat Head’s,” the brewery owners told the Akron Beacon Journal, “but we do make some high quality beer.” Gigantic? Size sure is relative.

Just outside of the Twin Cities, officials in smaller municipalities helped a handful of small brewing bizzes open their doors after eyeing big growth in the nearby bigger cities. In Jordan and Waconia, entrepreneurs sought to rekindle memories of late 19th century breweries and city planning boards, chambers of commerce and others have been happy to assist. Officials helped find a new home for planned Jordan Brewing Co after the historic site that founder Tim Roets had hoped to use sustained damage from a landslide this summer. The co’s new home will be a city-owned ex-library, found by city planners who think the brewery’s “a catalyst for the development of downtown,” a city admin told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.  “Our hope is that his business will draw other businesses, like restaurants,” he added. In nearby Waconia, the city offered a local winery a loan and tax abatement plan to open Waconia Brewing downtown in 5000 sq-ft space. Citing “interest in agritourism,” the city’s chamber of commerce prexy insisted local breweries, wineries and distilleries “draw visitors, and the benefits carry over to others, everything from shops and restaurants to gas stations in town,” according to a separate Star-Tribune report.

In Midwest, small companies are transforming another urban area into a brewing district of sorts. Three new breweries plan to open in Kansas City’s Crossroads Arts District during 2015, per Kansas City Biz Journal report.  Torn Label Brewing plans to open around the New Year, selling kegs before opening a taproom.  Border Brewing awaits its taproom license and targets a January opening, while Double Shift Brewing could open in the Spring.  Each of the new brewery founders spoke to paper about turning Crossroads “into a real craft beer destination,” and their convivial attitudes towards neighboring breweries.  In fact, Border Brewing and Double Shift “share an alleyway with a common area where we could do some interesting things with festivals,” said Border Brewing founder, Eric Martens. “It’s kind of been a validation that what we did 25 years ago was a great idea,” Boulevard founder John McDonald told paper, adding “it would be great if someday there are a lot of breweries in every town in America and it becomes much more of a regional activity.”

Proposal to renovate part of old Olympia Brewery site in Tumwater, WA was announced earlier this yr. And now Northwest Investment Group LLC sez it “will close on its purchase of most of the property” by yr-end, reported the Everett Daily Herald.  Plan is to have the 45,000 sq-ft “main building” renovated and ready by end of 2015, and turn it “into a destination featuring a brewery, distillery, brewpub and more.”  Yet property “totals 800,000 square feet,” reported Bellingham Herald, so plenty of room for expansion.  Original announcement of proposed plan dubbed project a potential “incubator” for small brewers and distillers (see May 20 issue).  Investment group is currently “in talks with a local brewer to move to the site and operate the brewery,” but nothin’ set yet. Publicly traded American Brewing Co reportedly “interested in the project” too, according to Bellingham Herald.  Other options NW Investment Group considering include “collaboration” with a college for an “educational platform for brewing, distilling and culinary arts,” and/or “rolling out a membership program” for community members “for commercial and entertainment purposes,” according to the Daily Herald.  Recall, Olympia Brewery “has been vacant since Miller closed it in 2003”; in Jun 2013 MC “lifted a deed restriction that prevented alcohol from being produced on the property.”  

Fla’s off-premise beer scene is about to get a little funkier now that Boca Raton & Oakland Park-based Funky Buddha Brewing will begin packaging its beers in bottles for sale as of Dec 10, co announced.  A coupla Funky Buddha flagship brands will be distributed thruout south Fla via Brown Dist, with plans to add more brews, 4pks, and limited 22oz in coming mos, and extend to Orlando, Tampa and rest of north Fla by “end of 2015.”  Recall co announced plans to up annual capacity to 16,000 bbls earlier this yr, and now has goal to reach “over 600,000 cases” by end of 2016.  “The launch of package is a huge leap in our growth as a company and a dramatic step forward for the evolution of craft beer in South Florida,” said co-owner KC Sentz in released statement.  

Maryland may be “way behind the curve” on craft, as Baltimore-area historian Maureen O’Prey said during economic development conference at Towson University Monday, but “the best part about this is, economically, there’s a ton of room for growth,” according to Baltimore Biz Journal report. We’re familiar with questions about craft’s staying power, but in this context, panelists put a unique spin on the conversation, wondering whether it’s “a passing fad or a lasting tool for economic development.” On a day full of pretty bleak economic outlooks, beer provided a lonely bright spot, the Baltimore Sun wrote. A Howard County official saw newly opened Jailbreak Brewing “as a way to attract these tech companies,” Jailbreak founder Kasey Turner said, per BBJ. Elsewhere in state, Salisbury, Md has “gone from four restaurants downtown to 16,” and “the most important thing in our revitalization is Evolution” Craft Brewing, Salisbury City Council President Jake Day said.

Alltech Lexington Brewing & Distilling Co, brewers of Kentucky Bourbon Ale, is expanding its downtown Lexington, KY facilities to have annual capacity of 140,000 bbls per yr by end of 2015, co announced.  Earlier this yr, Alltech also announced plans to build a 2d brewery and distillery in Pikeville, KY called Dueling Barrels Brewing & Distilling Co, and hopes to complete that project around the same time, co told CBN.  This will be a separate line of brews and spirits, starting with a “Pikeville Ale” beer, along with bourbon and moonshine.  Recall, Alltech’s primary biz is an internationally run animal nutrition co based in Nicholasville, KY.  So these folks have money to spend on their alc division, and are apparently willing to do so.   

Meanwhile Alltech has been rapidly expanding distribution footprint of its Kentucky Bourbon Ales in latter half of the yr, both in US and globally.  Now in 25 states, 5 countries and counting.  Co added 9 new states, switched distribs in another, and added territory in one state just since Jun: Tex & NM with L&F Dist; Tex with Brown Dist and Tri City Dist; NH, RI, CT and ME with Craft Beer Guild; PA with Galli Dist; SC with Advintage Dist; NJ with Hunterdon Brewing Co; switched brands in IL from River North to Windy City; and added territory in TN (Memphis area) with AS Barbaro. Then too, Kentucky Bourbon Ales entered France and Hungary this yr, with England, Spain and Japan coming soon.  With all these new mkt expansions, Alltech has hired 6 new employees to its US sales team.  

Recent spate of brewery openings/expansions across US show how states, cities, neighborhoods and even smaller geographical areas are latching on to small brewers to revitalize local economies, spread the word and sell more beer. Read on.  

A familiar small brewer supporter claimed Mass alc regs “designed to vest power in the hands of a few entrenched incumbents” for Boston Globe column this week, taking pay-to-play dust-up as oppy to revisit arguments he’s made for years. “Dysfunction is marbled throughout the system,” of which “pay-to-play is a natural byproduct,” wrote Paul McMorrow, Globe columnist, Commonwealth associate editor and regular contributor to BeerAdvocate mag. The Mass ABCC enforcement team has shrunk to 14 with a budget of $150K, half what it was 7 yrs ago as the paper reported over the weekend (also in our INSIGHTS Express letter earlier in the week). So regulators are “outgunned and out of touch,” to McMorrow, who finds “the whole business is borderline-dirty by design,” one that “values powerful, entrenched interests above free markets, consumers and entrepreneurs.” This ain’t the first time he’s questioned the system and relations between brewers and distribs for the Globe, as McMorrow penned similarly blistering commentaries in defense of small brewers (and their attempts to pass franchise reform in the state) back in 2012 and 2011. By claiming current gov’t inaction is “smothering competition and seeding the kind of corruption seen in the pay-to-play allegations,” the columnist ties the current, sometimes emotionally-charged concerns about payola to bigger, tougher legislative goals of small brewers in the minds of readers.

Indeed, follow-up general editorial in today’s Globe piles on with another attack on state’s “complicated distribution system” and Mass “middlemen.”   Calls Mass market a “morass that limits consumer choices, enriches special interests and invites misconduct.”  With combo of limits on retailers and on brewers’ ability to “shop around” for new distribs, Globe believes, “it’s no wonder [brewers] may feel pressure to pay off restaurants to carry their products, and that restaurants may be tempted to demand such payments.”