E-Malt.com News article: US, OR & MO: Oregon’s Deschutes Brewery to expand into Missouri this year

Deschutes Brewery is the latest out-of-state craft brewery to announce plans to start selling its beers in Missouri this year, stltoday.com reported on March, 30.

"We're in the process of finalizing the selection process with distributors," Mark Hegedus, the brewery's director of sales and marketing, is quoted as saying. "We will be expanding into Missouri in 2011."

The Bend, Ore.,-based brewery, established in 1988, will first send beers to the Kansas City area before moving east, and into St. Louis, about a month or two later, Hegedus says.

By year's end, he says, about four or five Deschutes styles will be available statewide, including top-sellers Black Butte Porter and Mirror Pond Pale Ale. Seasonal and limited-release beers from the brewery's Bond Street and Reserve lines will be phased in later.

The Missouri news* caps a busy month for Deschutes. The company announced a major brewery expansion that will eventually increase its production capacity by 105,000 barrels a year (Deschutes brewed about 205,000 barrels in 2010 and is on pace to produce about 225,000 barrels this year). Deschutes this month also began distributing to South Dakota.

Missouri will be the brewery's 18th distribution state. Hegedus says Deschutes is not planning on adding any other states this year, instead choosing to focus on keeping up with demand in core markets like Oregon and California while providing beer to new customers in places like South Dakota and here.

"Missouri is a great beer state with a phenomenal history and tradition," Hegedus says. "We've seen the way that people have embraced the next generation of beer companies there like Schlafly, O'Fallon and Boulevard, and we felt that it's a great market to help get us into the Midwest."

Other out-of-state craft breweries apparently feel the same way about Missouri. Firestone Walker Brewing Co. began distributing here this month, Stone Brewing Co. will start sending its beers here next month, and Green Flash Brewing Co. expects its brews to be available in Missouri this summer. All three breweries are based in California.

"We've been receiving emails and calls from fans and retailers in Missouri asking us to come there," Hegedus says. "That was a pretty good indicator to us that there would be support for our brands."

* Speculation surrounding Deschutes' entry into the state has swirled since November, when a brewery representative left a business card with a handwritten note at the International Tap House in Soulard that read: "Coming to Missouri soon!!"


01 April, 2011