Regional Crafts Poised for Growth, And Other Observations

That was one of several conclusions drawn by IRI's Bump Williams to the media at the Great American Beer Festival. Bump pointed out that many regional craft brands, which do not enjoy national distribution, actually have extremely high velocity per outlet numbers. Regional brands with high velocity are Sierra Nevada (although Sierra has pretty high "almost national" distribution at 70%), Sam Adams Seasonals, Fat Tire, Shiner Bock, Deschutes Mirror Pond, Boulevard, and Abita. The case can be made that, with