It’s that time of year again! Come join us this Saturday for the biggest AWBF yet.

There is a huge locals tent where we’ll be pouring Eventide Pale Ale, Kölsch, and Nitro Stout. We look forward to seeing you there!

The post Atlanta Winter Beerfest is this Saturday! appeared first on Eventide Brewing.

1) Make our beer more accessible. We have been a draft only operation for a full year, and every day we get asked where can I buy your bottles/cans? By moving into cans we will be able to produce 2-3x as much beer as we did last year and have it available in off-premise locations (that’s industry speak for convenience stores, grocery stores, and other retailers). This allows more people to experience Eventide, and helps us spread the word that “Great Doesn’t Have to be Complicated”.

2) Maximize our equipment usage. When we started Eventide we wanted to use a small system to work with our core ideal, and really hone our skills by making smaller batches. The smaller system was, also, about as much as we could afford with the money we scrapped together. Getting us into cans will allow us to max out our system, and get ready for an expansion into a larger system within a few years.

The plan to get into cans is as follows.

First, we have to finish working out the funding needs for the canning line, cans, additional equipment, and additional raw materials, but we should be moving past this very shortly. Second, we need to finalize our can design. Currently, we are designing a can which showcases our honest, approachable styling, and can really compliment our uncomplicated message. Designs for the cans are expected to finished up on Feb 9th. Third, execution of our plans and launch into market. We have already begun the process and are expecting it to be late spring when we can get cans into the market. Don’t fret if we miss spring by a month or two, we’re also working on a number of other things and it takes a great deal of time to do something right. Also, we have to continue to focus on growing the existing products, and while putting beer into cans may sound simple there are many moving parts that require undivided attention. When we do go into cans we want to make sure it is with the best beer we can make, good for our business, and great for our fans. No rush=better product.

We will be canning the Pale Ale and the Kölsch Style Ale first. We have kicked the idea around of other styles, but those will come later on. We want to see how these two styles do in the market, and work out any kinks in the process, before we expand our can offerings past these initial two. Hopefully, this summer when you pack up to go shoot the hooch, have an afternoon picnic, or want to kick back on your front porch, you’ll be able to do it with a delicious can of Eventide in your hands.

A final note: None of this would be possible without your support. Our fans have been an overwhelming blessing to us, and we are so grateful to have so much support from our city and state.

Cheers,

The Team (Nathan, Haley, Geoffrey, and Mathew)

The post Cans are in the planning stage appeared first on Eventide Brewing.

The post Thank you for an amazing Anniversary appeared first on Eventide Brewing.

It’s almost been a full year since we opened our doors. This is such a special week for us that we’ve lined up multiple celebratory events which will begin tomorrow night, 1/6, at Cypress Street Pint & Plate. We’ll be visiting a different neighborhood each night with beer specials, infused styles, and a brand new cask ale. We’re trying to make each event stand alone, so make time for as many as possible.

We hope you to see you this week. Check our calendar for event locations, dates, and times.

Cheers,

Eventide Team

The post It’s Our Anniversary Week! appeared first on Eventide Brewing.

The Wall Street Journal reports Budweiser is on a 25 year decline in sales, and as you can see craft beer is on the sharp incline. Now with over 3000 breweries in the United States, more than has ever existed in history, we should consider ourselves in a new era of beer. The term “Craft Beer” means a lot of things, and can mean different things to different people. When we look to see what the new year will bring, and how it will help shape the future of the “Craft Beer Era”, there are a few things to which we should pay close attention. Beer is a business, and fast growth business markets have a few things in common as they grow; these things are exponential growth, consolidation, failure, and innovation. Let’s see in which direction 2015 will lead us.

More Fast Growth: Fast growth business markets are not rare, but they are also not common. The scale of the market, many times, is relative to the size of problem they solve. Craft beer is a very interesting market because of the size of its market. In 2007, there were over 6.7 billion gallons of beer sold in the United States alone. On average, each american drinks 28 gallons per year of beer, and, in Georgia, we drink 30 gallons per person per year. The fast growth of the market brings with it buzz, and this buzz is easily seen with beer festivals, beer races, changing laws, new retail outlets, and a ton of press concerning the topic. Craft beer has been covered by every major publication including The New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, and Harvard Business Review. This buzz stokes the flames of growth nurturing new business ideas and educating the masses.

Education and new ideas generally lead to many new ventures spawning up around the fast growth market. For the craft beer marketer, look at how many new breweries have opened up. There are now over 3,000 which is more than has ever existed in history in our country. Just a few years ago there were only 2,000! You can find stores selling craft beer, home brewing supplies, and/or growler fills stores in almost every town in Georgia. New businesses such as beer tours, beer soap, spent grain crackers, and even beer candles have all seen profitable years recently. As all fast growth marketers there is a rising tide, yet there will be contraction, whether it is through consolidation or failure.

Failure: Failure is a part of all fast growth markets, and generally happens after the market has had time to get past its buzz state and consumers begin to refine their wants and needs. The businesses that were built to take advantage of the buzz will soon fail once the buzz is lost. We are beginning to see this happen in very small steps in our local market. We are seeing brands move in from other states open with big fan fair, yet fade out quickly if not nurtured with proper marketing and sales. We are seeing many new breweries pop up, yet the majority of the press is going to a select few. Those breweries who are focused on the most buzz worth styles, and we are being kept in the dark as to the struggles for those breweries who are even just slightly out of the spot light. We have not seen a brewery close its doors recently due to the fast growth which has been able to flood new businesses with profits able to overcome any flaws in their models, yet when the flood recedes even slightly we will see those flaws exposed and see our first new business failure.

Innovation: Failure is also happening on smaller scales with not just the failing of business models, but product failures as well. This is a positive type of failure and something which is a standard part of innovation. As the palates of our consumers evolve so will our beer offerings. Recently, the big winner in flavor adjuncts have been hot peppers and chocolate. Yet, there have also been some failures along the way, and there are sure to be more to come. For us to end up with a winning combination in the future of flavor, innovation, and surprise we will have to use more off the wall combinations. Some of which will end up in complete failure. These beers may never make it to market, yet some will for sure, and honestly this keeps the air of surprise apparent when hunting down new things to try. As long as we are willing to accept failure, and learn from it, we will continue to grow and progress as a market.

Market Consolidation: The last major thing we should expect to see in the beer market in 2015 is consolidation. This is very unlikely to come from one of our breweries buying another, but this is not far fetched to think of an outside brewery buying a local player. As we’ve written many times, the southern market is a wild west frontier for craft beer. The market is massive, yet uneducated. As education grows so will the potential market size. The georgia market alone is 2x the size of the Colorado market with 1/5 of the competition. We’ve seen many breweries expand their operations up in Asheville and we should expect to see them shipping more product to our state. Because of the interest in the southern market, it would not be out of the question for one of these larger breweries to take a hard look at acquiring an existing enterprise.

So, in 2015, look for more off the wall styles as brewers push the limits further of what will keep extreme beer fans happy. Notice the failures of styles which don’t make it to market, and take note of potential businesses failures due to lack of proper business planning with possible consolidation as a result or as a way for expansion into our local market. We’ll be sure to see more new breweries opening up, and more hype around our existing rising stars of the Georgia beer scene. 2015 will be an interesting year of fast growth for us, and we hope it’s as fun as 2014 was. Cheers, and we look forward to another great year with you!

The post What will 2015 bring for craft beer? appeared first on Eventide Brewing.

The post Where to find us: A MAP appeared first on Eventide Brewing.

Budweiser executives believe their 25 year downward slide is a result of improper or incorrect marketing. So the Budweiser brand has decided to ditch a fan favorite of the  holiday season, the clydesdale horse team, in favor of for NYC’s “Hova” aka Jay-Z. The Wall Street Journal reports that the reason for this change is that Budweiser’s internal metrics are telling them they are falling short with the 21-27 demographic. Budweiser is going to bench the horses and use Jay-Z to break into the 20-something culture, who, they show, are music focused and food obsessed (their data claims over 50% of their 21-27 group consider themselves “Foodies”).

Lets look at the numbers: 

• Budweiser has had the horses for 81 years
• Their Superbowl Ad this past year featuring the puppy and the horses was the #1 rated advertisement 
• Sales of the traditional Budweiser have fallen for 25 years straight
• Budweiser sold 16m barrels in 2013
• Craft beer as an industry sold 16.1m barrels in 2013
• Jay-Z endorses 38 other products including (Heineken, Hublot Watches, Reebok, Liquor brands, Rocawear, and Bing)
• Jay-Z has 19 Grammies, and has sold over 75 million records

The scary part here is Jay-Z, as an endorser, really works. Hublot commented when they had him rep their line of watches their demand skyrocketed. However, before working with Hublot he endorsed their direct competition, so his loyalty can be called into question. Also, while endorsed by Hublots competition he rapped about their brand and mentioned the name of their watch 8 times on the “Upgrade U” track. Could Budweiser work this into the deal as well? Maybe rework “Empire State of Mind” to be “Budweiser State of Mind” (“The city never sleeps better slip you a Platinum…”)?

While Jay-Z is a big name, and someone who can move brands, it isn’t certain that AB/InBev will hit the mark with the 21-27 year old demo through this partnership. While iconic, the horses have become outdated to the market which Budweiser is trying to cater, but is a 45 year old rap mogul (happy birthday, Hov!) the answer? Or is this the latest attempt to sway craftier consumers by throwing large amounts of cash into a new marketing campaign? We’ll find out soon enough.

The post Budweiser Dumps Horses for Hova appeared first on Eventide Brewing.

The post Where you can find us this week appeared first on Eventide Brewing.

Following up on the recent sales of many breweries in both the United States and around the world it seems there is a stigma for breweries. The stigma being that selling out is always bad, but this appears to be in a bit of grey area. What, really, is “selling out”?

Boulevard sold recently yet has not changed one bit, nor does anyone expect them to. They still make great beer, and you can find a Tank 7 on almost any beer list these days. They were small, but they grew due to their amazing beer and the market being able to absorb their brews as part of the expanding focus on craft. Was this sale bad? Did they sell out? To some yes, but to others no. To those who feel that a sale of any kind is selling out let’s really break down what selling out means.

If selling out is just transferring ownership of the brewery then almost all breweries sell out. For example, a local brewery in Decatur, GA sold 40% of their business up front to get the ball rolling. Do we call them a “Sell-out”? Terrapin sold a large portion of their brewery off to fund a more promising path forward. This was done because their investors wanted to grow the brewery as quickly as possible which would have pushed the brewery away from its craft focus. Therefore, this “sell out” could really be looked at as a “buy in” of the craft mentality. The cost of beginning a brewery is very large, and usually can’t be done without a large influx of capital, hence you have to sell some ownership in return. So if we consider simply selling ownership the we are all sell outs.

If selling ownership isn’t totally selling out, then what percentage is required to be considered a “sell out”? The brewery in Decatur sold 40% before they even opened their doors off to investors, where Terrapin just took a $25 million dollar loan from 10th and Blake (Miller Coors investment arm) with a much lower transfer of ownership. What about a brewery who’s investors own more than 50% of the brewery, do they start out as sell outs? If investment and ownership aren’t really factors which help us determine the criteria for a sell out then what makes you a sell out?

Is it those who intend to make a profit? If you don’t make a profit you’ll go out of business quickly. So when everyone got up in arms over the 10barrel sales to AB the real issue was not ownership, investment, but rather people felt deceived. They bought into the Craft mentality: the love, the passion, and the mission of craft. They were lead to believe growth wasn’t the goal, but rather a sustainable business which gives the most it can to its craft and provides the best possible product it can make in return. Given these parameters the 10barrel sell out can be called into question. This appears to move away from the close knit craft community, the band of brewing brothers (and sisters), and toward the pursuit of profit.

So selling out means a lot of different things to different people. At Eventide we have sold some our ownership to people outside of the brewery. We had to because after putting up everything we could we were still about 50K short on the money we needed for our first phase of operation. We didn’t take millions of dollars, and don’t plan to until it is absolutely necessary for growth. Our plan is to create a legacy at Eventide. We want our families to grow up with this, pass it down to our kids, and be a viable part of the community the entire time. We see a small local brewery as a way we can help contribute to making Grant Park a special place. To us, selling out would be doing anything which compromised that goal. We look at this as a 50 year plan, and we will plan our expansions accordingly.

In conclusion, the way we look at it any brewery trying to take advantage of a fast growing market, who is doing it for other reasons than creating legacy, sustainability, community focus, and the love of their craft is a sell out. So with all the new craft breweries coming on line, do some research before you buy into their mission. See who they are, what their plans are, and what you can expect in the future. Don’t buy in without doing your due diligence, because you’ll likely find your self being disappointed later on by a “Sell-out”.

The post Our 50 Year Plan and Thoughts on “Selling Out” appeared first on Eventide Brewing.

The back story: This beer came about as a result of many other brews. After homebrewing for any considerable amount of time one is sure to have an abundance of small amounts of grain and hops. What we do with these ingredients can make for both an interesting challenge and great (or not so great, depending) beer. Thankfully, this beer turned out better than imagined and has been a go to fresh and cellarable beer for some time. 7 malts are used to create this wonderfully complex Strong Scotch Ale. Notes of caramel, toasted bread, honey, dark fruits, chocolate, and roasted coffee are all prevalent. Allow it to warm to cellar temperature to experience the full flavor profile. The sweetness is balanced by a hefty but not overwhelming bitterness. This beer is the perfect complement to the coming, cool fall weather.

The Numbers: 

SRM: 20

IBU: 40

ABV: 8.2%

Where to find it: It’s a one off so it’s going to be a very limited run. The good news is we are holding a few kegs back to cellar to open up in our tasting room which should be open next year. We’ve already cellared this ale for a few years in bottles, and talked about it in our “Cellar Series Post“. We’ll have more to come about the cellar program and it’s role in the tasting room when we get closer to opening. So make sure to ask your local craft establishment if they are going to bring it on, and make sure to try it “Fresh” as well as “Cellared” at our tasting room next year.

The post There Can Be Only One appeared first on Eventide Brewing.