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Green Flash pulls out of 33 states

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Beer brewed and packaged in San Diego will ship to Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nebraska, Nevada, Texas, and Utah. Beer brewed and packaged in Virginia Beach will ship to Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Virginia. These East Coast states have collectively become the fastest growing Green Flash region, benefiting greatly from the Virginia Beach brewery’s first full year of production in 2017.

The Green Flash Brewhouse & Eatery in Lincoln, Nebraska will open as scheduled in the first quarter of 2018, and will brew beer serving the state of Nebraska. The Company is excited to build the Green Flash and Alpine brands in Nebraska, which will serve as the model for future Green Flash geographic expansions.

While I can't say I'm surprised that Green Flash overextended themselves with the Alpine deal, the VA facility, and Nebraska plans, the scale of their pullback is overwhelming. They've stopped serving 2/3rds of states overnight.
 
I, too, have pulled out in 33 states
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Does that mean no more Alpine in Oregon? I mean, Green Flash basically ruined Alpine, but still... damn.
That reminds me, I actually had a Nelson at a bar last week, and it gave me the #OGNelsonFeels for the first time in years. There was still a twinge of a bitter finish, but it had everything else that Nelson* was missing: great tropical balance, creamy mouthfeel, and perfect attenuation.

I don't know if it was a one-off or what, but holy **** I'm fiending again. I'm planning on going to the GF brewery sometime this week to see if it's the real deal.
 
That reminds me, I actually had a Nelson at a bar last week, and it gave me the #OGNelsonFeels for the first time in years. There was still a twinge of a bitter finish, but it had everything else that Nelson* was missing: great tropical balance, creamy mouthfeel, and perfect attenuation.

I don't know if it was a one-off or what, but holy **** I'm fiending again. I'm planning on going to the GF brewery sometime this week to see if it's the real deal.
I had Nelson on tap a couple times here when they first showed up and it was pretty solid. Probably not the same, my memory is fuzzy, but it was still good. Of course you don't see it anymore.
 
That reminds me, I actually had a Nelson at a bar last week, and it gave me the #OGNelsonFeels for the first time in years. There was still a twinge of a bitter finish, but it had everything else that Nelson* was missing: great tropical balance, creamy mouthfeel, and perfect attenuation.

I don't know if it was a one-off or what, but holy **** I'm fiending again. I'm planning on going to the GF brewery sometime this week to see if it's the real deal.

I had Nelson on tap a couple times here when they first showed up and it was pretty solid. Probably not the same, my memory is fuzzy, but it was still good. Of course you don't see it anymore.

Before the sale, I thought that Nelson was one of the best beers I've ever had, and with Green Flash, it was still really awesome. I thought the other beers went from pretty great to not that great, or even bad, sometimes. I'm not sure if it was the distributor's fault, but I've had to choke down a particularly gross Duet or Hoppy Birthday before, and that should have never happened.
 
I think the number (33 states) might seem striking at first but the pullback only accounts for 18% of their wholesaler shipments, so it's actually not that much of a hit. Reducing workforce by 15% and then focusing on more relevant markets definitely seems like the right thing to do.

I think the interesting piece here is who else will be following suit? I think we'll be seeing a lot of the national/almost national brands needing to do something like this at some point in the future given the local and hyper-local shift in brand presence. I read some interesting stats the other day that taprooms and brewpubs now account for 9% of all bar traffic in the US (!!!). This number goes up to 20-35% in some regions, including usual suspects like San Diego and Denver. Interesting to think about the fundamental changes happening in consumption patterns across the industry.
 
Wonder what this means for their export market. They entered into a particularly uninspiring partnership with St Feuillien to brew core range stuff in Belgium but were still continuing to send US brewed stuff over too.
 
I haven't bought a GF beer since they stopped making Rayon Vert. Bought a couple Alpine bottles when they came here, but nothing in a long time. We've had a lot of California breweries try to enter the Seattle market in the last few years but aside from Modern Times I don't know many that are successful.
 
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I'm sure this is partly my Seattle perspective, but Green Flash doesn't sound all that exciting to me when you've got Boiler, White Elm, etc.

It's an addition to the "it's Saturday, let's go to Lincoln and hit some breweries!" type of day. My hopes is that they'll brew a bunch of variations on West Coast or constantly have fresh Nelson on tap. If it's just going to be the core line up and a boring burger I'm already disappointed. Big fan of Boiler and White Elm.
 
Surprised they're not pulling out of Texas....

... I almost never see them on tap in the big 4 cities (SA, ATX, HOU, DFW).
 
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