Time to stock up on Bell's?

According to this article, Bell's Beer might be scarce in the Chicagoland area soon:

http://www.chicagoist.com/archives/2006 ... stance.php

Thoughts? My first thought was, damn, right before Double Cream Stout season!

carrienation wrote:According to this article, Bell's Beer might be scarce in the Chicagoland area soon:

http://www.chicagoist.com/archives/2006 ... stance.php

Thoughts? My first thought was, damn, right before Double Cream Stout season!

Saw this too. It makes me really really sad. First New Glarus and now Bell's. If it's any consolation, Kalamazoo is not all that far away, and the Bell's brewpub is definitely worth a stop.

New Glarus is in the process of expanding their brewing capacity by quite a bit--hopefully they'll consider re-entering the market. In my opinion one of the top 3 or 4 breweries in the country.

This is bad news. Yet another example of why Illinois needs some political reform REAL BAD.

"Let a thousand hops blossoms bloom; let a hundred microbrews contend."

Road trip to Kalamazoo, anyone? [But you'll have to drive....]

Giovanna

Giovanna wrote:Road trip to Kalamazoo, anyone? [But you'll have to drive....]

Bell's brewpub is close to the Amtrak station in Kalamazoo. You can catch the Wolverine at 7:50 am from Union Station which gets you to Kalamazoo at 11:23 Michigan time. The Bell's pub opens at noon (the store opens at 10). You can then catch a return train at 8:12 pm, which gives you 8 full hours in which to imbibe.

http://tickets.amtrak.com/itd/amtrak/WeeklySpecials

Actually, to get Bell's beers, all you will need to do is cross into Indiana. Anybody know any decent beer stores in Whiting or East Chicago?

Just a head's-up for you during your travels: there's Bell's in Whitewater, Janesville and Madison, when you're next up that way.

The only place as corrupt as Pennsylvania, boozewise, is Illinois. There really should be some crackerjack lawyer on LTH who'd be willing to do a pro bono to get the three-tier system looked at closely in the state.

Geo

d4v3 wrote:Bell's brewpub is close to the Amtrak station in Kalamazoo. You can catch the Wolverine at 7:50 am from Union Station which gets you to Kalamazoo at 11:23 Michigan time. The Bell's pub opens at noon (the store opens at 10). You can then catch a return train at 8:12 pm, which gives you 8 full hours in which to imbibe.

Wow. That's beautiful. And only $36 bucks. Verrrry interesting.

germuska wrote:Wow. That's beautiful. And only $36 bucks. Verrrry interesting.

If you go on a weekday, you can usually get a $27 roundtrip special. There are a couple of other interesting beer joints in Kalamazoo.

This is distressing news. Bell's Best Brown Ale is one of my favorite beers and, as a seasonal, is hard enough to find in the first place.

Oh, well, I have people in Indiana, maybe they'd be willing to pull a Smokey and the Bandit for me...

My usual destination for New Glarus stock ups, Woodman's in Kenosha, has always carried a hearty selection of Bell's as well. It's a quick trip up if you avoid the obvious bad traffic times.

Kristen

Edited to fix a typo.

Gapers' Block wrote:Bell's is one of my favorite microbreweries (mmm, Oberon), so I was dismayed to find out their delicious beers would no longer be available in Chicago because of a distribution dispute. In response, members of the Logan Square Draught Beer Preservation Society will be meeting at Weegee's Lounge, 3659 W. Armitage, Tuesday night at 9pm to develop a plan of action. If you're mad as hell and can't take it anymore, join in!

I'm not sure I have much reason to believe that this is going to change any business practices, but thought I'd pass it on...

Egads! Say it ain't so! This is really, really, really awful news. I'm an avid homebrewer and a lover of all things beer, and Bell's is my all-around favorite American brewery. The Two-Hearted Ale is my benchmark for American IPAs, their stouts (Expedition, Kalamazoo, and Double Cream) are out of this world, and their one-off experiments (like the wheat series and their Batch 5000, 6000, 7000, etc) are the sort of fun experimentation I love to see from a brewery.

At least we still got Three Floyd's beers sold here. And that train trip looks like a great idea.

Short story: Drive to Indiana.

We have already been trekking to the closest beer store to Three Floyds in Indiana for Stone beers. They also stock Bells. It’s a little liquor store that looks like it was previously a Del Taco (did you have that chain here ever?) but they have a very nice selection of Midwest Craft brews plus Stone that we cannot get here.

The Liquor Stop
9218 Indianapolis Blvd
Highland, Indiana, 46322
(you may also be able to get a volume discount)

Long Story:
Indeed, Union Beverage (Bell's distributor) is reportedly getting out of the beer business and Bell's will be gone from Chicago markets for atleast a year. National Wine and Spirits (NWS) is the company that owned the rights to distributing these beers in Chicago, and they are selling them.

As far as I can tell from press releases and reports on Beer Advocate, so far NWS has sold the distribution rights to some of their portfolio from Union to "Chicago Beverage Systems", a distributor that is mainly Miller/Interbrew(InBev).

NWS holds/held the rights to a large number of interesting beers that I will be sorry if they disappear from our markets.

Here is what is currently known (on www.beeradvocate.com) about the possible destiny of Union distributed brands:

Brands CBS will take over (announced 10/16)
Sierra Nevada, Paulaner, Warsteiner, Affligem, Fischer
Woodchuck Cider, Woodpecker Cider, Strongbow Cider

Brands in the Merchant du Vin portfolio: (uncertain, but Glunz rumor)
Samuel Smith, Lindeman's, Rochefort (already listed by Glunz), Ayinger/Celebrator, Orval, Pinkus, Westmalle, Traquair

Sapporo (Glunz already handles Unibroue, so I would guess they will pick up Sapporo, who now owns Unibroue, but that might make too much logical sense to be true.)

Vanberg & Dewulf beers: Uncertain
Dupont/Moinette/Foret/Biere du Miel
Boon, Scaldis, Witkap-Pater

Other uncertain brands:
Ommegang/Duvel/Maredsous/Rodenbach
Erdinger, Fuller’s, Young’s
New Holland, Sprecher, Summit,
North Coast, Mendocino (but lists Stawski on website)
Schmaltz, Rogue

Its the smaller folks in this last list that I worry most about dissappearing from our markets. I suspect the others will be sold off or will be willing to be sold off.

Griffin's Wife, Thanks for the tip about the liquor store in Highland -- we will be making a trip there on on Saturday. My husband didn't know about this place and since he is a big fan of Bell's and some of the other beers you mentioned, I can safely assume we will be dragging liquor across the border for a while. Fortunately, we live about 20 minutes from Highland!

Suzy

FYI/WIW, Whole Foods had a display of a couple of Bell's beers with a sign saying this was their last shipment.

BeerDorks.com has a story explaining some of the legal details of beer distribution in Illinois, and a pointer to a shop in Iowa that will ship Bell's here for about $11/six pack.

I'm so lucky. Josephine brought me two six-packs of Bell's Best Brown Ale when we got together for the Burt's GNR (Thanks St. Muffy!)

Showing incredible restraint, I've only been through two bottles so far. Mmmmm ... rich, toasty, nutty malts, light hops, complex ...

germuska wrote:BeerDorks.com has a story explaining some of the legal details of beer distribution in Illinois, and a pointer to a shop in Iowa that will ship Bell's here for about $11/six pack.

That story is not 100% accurate. Bell's could have stayed with their current distributor (Union Beverage) just like many other breweries ended up doing (i.e. Duvel, Samuel Smiths, Westmalle, Summit, etc..), but instead they pulled out of the market. In one year Bells can come back to Illinois and be with any distributor that they please. Personally I think they want to be able to self distribute which is why they are willing to go away for a year.

I just bought the last 6-pack of Bell's Third Coast in Wild Oats in Evanston on Monday. I trying to restrain myself too.

Last week Prairie Moon in Evanston still had Bell's Brown on Tap and the bartender was amazed it was still running. Some sort of miracle "loaves and fishes" keg. I'm sure it's done now, but I'll go and check tonight. Rumor has it the tap will be replaced with a Rogue.

If it's gone I'll drown my sorrows with the wonderfully fresh Maredsous (Belgian Trippel) they have on tap for a limited time.

Now that Bell's has released their winter seasonals, some friends and I are seriously considering taking a train trip up to Kalamazoo for a suds soaked Saturday jaunt. I figure we could hit the Corner Bar for lunch and their $2.50 Michigan pints, then stumble over to Bell's and finally Kraftbrau, before taking the train back home. Would anybody else be interested in such an excursion? The train leaves Union station at 7:50am arriving in Kalamazoo at 11:30 (EST). The return train leaves Kal at 8:12pm getting back to Chi at 9:54 (CST). The cost is $36 round trip. The only problem is finding a Saturday that doesn't interfere with too many holiday plans.

This is certainly sad news. Two Hearted has long been my old standby, and after it became widely available year-round, more likely than not there was a six pack or some portion thereof of Two Hearted in my refrigerator at all times.

On a side note, I recently moved back to the Boston area for some period of time and one thing that shocked me upon moving out here is the variety of beers available. Certainly not the Midwestern brews (no Bells, Three Floyds, Great Lakes, etc. to be found), but there are beers from many California breweries available here (including one of my favorites, Stone Brewing Co.) that are not available in Illinois. I'm not sure if this has anything to do with Illinois' whack liquor distribution laws and regulations (although it does seem strange that an east coast state would have better access to west coast beers than a state (Illinois) that is closer to that west coast origin), but it is an interesting data point.

Matt wrote: I'm not sure if this has anything to do with Illinois' whack liquor distribution laws and regulations (although it does seem strange that an east coast state would have better access to west coast beers than a state (Illinois) that is closer to that west coast origin), but it is an interesting data point.

Whether or not you think Illinois has whack distribution laws (I don't think they do and I know that this is not a popular opinion on the board). Companies like Stone are not prevented to coming to the market by the laws. The fact is to make it worth Stone's (or anyone else's) while they would have to spend a lot of money to get the product in the stores and at the right price and then spend money on the marketing end whether that is through tastings or whatever. To some companies it is not worth it. Plus Chicago is under indexed volume-wise in the craft category compared to the rest of the nation making it even harder to make money.

just my two cents

It just depends on how you define "whack." If "whack" means not constitutional, then history would seem to be on Matt's side.

JeffB wrote:It just depends on how you define "whack." If "whack" means not constitutional, then history would seem to be on Matt's side.

Except that the constitution (in the 21st amendment) says that each state has control over alcohol and how it is sold. Illinois recently changed their law to comply with the Granholm decision regarding their shipping policy on wine which made all of their laws constitutional.

Anyways enough about the politics. I am sad to see Bell's go and I hope they are successful if and when they come back. With New Belguim (Fat Tire) bringing the rest of the brands to Illinois next year I think it will be hard to get back to the same level they are now. I just want some good beer and its Friday afternoon which means a couple of more hours till I can enjoy a nice cold beer.

Cf., Kendall-Jackson Wineries, Ltd., v. Branson, 82 F.Supp.2d 844, 866 (N.D.Ill. 2000)

I wasn't making any political or legal judgments (or arguments), just an historical observation. (But I'm not sure that amending the law to address one particular Supreme Court decision can support the proposition that all of Illinois' laws are now constitutional. (Gratuitous logical (almost a fortiori not legal or political) observation.) I'll stop.

Putting constitutional issues aside, when I say "whack," I largely mean anti-competitive and harmful to consumers. Alcohol is regulated in a manner that probably is more of a vestige of the post-prohibition legal/regulatory construct that alcohol should be treated as a type of controlled substance and in a manner that also just so happens to protect the interests of certain players in the distribution chain (such as the worst owner in all of professional sports). The big loser, of course, is the consumer, who sees higher prices and fewer choices.

The liquor/distribution industry has a bad record of protectionist policies masquerading as being in the public interest. In several states, the classic line given by distributors for fighting direct shipping initiatives (pre-Granholm) was that minors would be able to get their hands on wine more easily if direct shipping was allowed. Here in Massachusetts, a statewide ballot initiative just failed in Tuesday's election that would have allowed supermarkets to carry wine because a consortium of liquor store owners, wholesalers and distributors ran a scare campaign that such a radical step would lead to more underage drinking and drunken driving fatalities.

I agree with Matt. Two centuries ago Adam Smith warned that business people are the greatest enemies of free enterprise, because every business person would like to have his/her own monopoly.

Illinois' liquor distribuiton laws are whack because they were bought by the distributors (contributions to our upright polticians). The laws are for the benefit of the distributors and no one else.

You should not confuse the Beer Industry Fair Dealing Act with the infamous "Wirtz" law that regulates wine and liquor. The beer act was written to protect local distributors from the abusive and coercive practices by brewers that were widespread after prohibition. Prior to the law, brewers would use the threat of pulling their brand to make all kinds of demands on the distributors. Those demands included buying unwanted promotional materials at inflated prices, buying unneeded excess inventory, firing employees and replacing them with individuals of the brewers' choosing or even selling the brewers a share of the distribution company at below market value. Of course, the major brewers' initial reaction to the law was to buy their own distribution companies.

The problems were then compounded by the consolidation of the beer industry in the 1970s. As the major beverage companies grew into megalopolies and started buying up regional brewers, they started moving the newly acquired brands to their own distribution companies. The loss of a brand like Molson could have bankrupted a venerable distributor like Louis Glunz, so the law was rewritten in 1982. The Fair Dealing Act at least insured that the beverage conglomerates needed to negotiate in good faith with the distributors before pulling a brand. Those negotiations often involve some sort of lump-sum payment to the distributor.

Unfortunately, the authors of the 24 year old law did not consider the possibility that there would be a resurgence of regional and "micro" brewing. Now that the distribution side of the business has become a big money maker for the major beverage companies, they are buying out the portfolios of smaller distributors, often at the expense of the microbrewers, who do not have enough market clout to make any demands. It is not unlike the major entertainment conglomerates buying up independent record labels to get a few choice acts, and then ignoring the rest of the artists on the label. In other words, a law that was originally intended to curb abuses by major beverage corporations, is now being used to those same corporations’ advantage, and the disadvantage of microbrewers and their loyal customers.

Here is a link to a Tribune article concerning Larry Bell's decision to leave the Illinois market.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ ... i-news-hed

Free Bell's farewell/tasting party tonight (Fri., Nov. 17), according to the Reader:

http://blogs.chicagoreader.com/food/200 ... bye-bells/

West Lakeview Liquors
2156 W. Addison
6 - 9 PM

louisdog wrote:
Whether or not you think Illinois has whack distribution laws (I don't think they do and I know that this is not a popular opinion on the board). Companies like Stone are not prevented to coming to the market by the laws. The fact is to make it worth Stone's (or anyone else's) while they would have to spend a lot of money to get the product in the stores and at the right price and then spend money on the marketing end whether that is through tastings or whatever. To some companies it is not worth it. Plus Chicago is under indexed volume-wise in the craft category compared to the rest of the nation making it even harder to make money.

just my two cents

Stone is not legally prohibitted from entering the Illinois market, but their failure to do so is most certainly tied to what they and many small producers I have heard from consider among the most absurdly anti-free-market and corrupt distribution laws in the country.
I honestly don't know of anyone outside of yourself a couple others with ties to major distributors who doesn't think that the laws are crippling to free markets and consumer choice, and that includes people from small brewers, small distributors, liquor store owners, bartenders and owners who specialize in small producers like the Maproom and Hopleaf, and knowledgeable consumers who focus on craft beer.

Stone distributes farther East than Chicago to much smaller and less knowledgeable beer markets that require more legwork to sell their beers than Chicago would.
Stone's reputation among consumers and the beer industry in Chicago is huge and nearly every halfway serious beer bar and liquor store would be clamoring for their products upon even a rumor they were coming to Illinois. Stone doesn't come to Illinois because they don't want to enslave themselves for the unforseeable future to the whims of whatever distributor they make an initial agreement with, as Illinois law requires.
Especially since the law also so favors large distributors that even if they made a deal with a smaller and at the time reputable microbrew distributor, the odds are high that distributor and the the rights to all the beers it carries would be bought out by a larger distributor.

Like many other small producers that are in high demand and cannot satistfy all potential markets, Stone chooses other states over Illinois because the loss of control over their own brand and all the potential abuses that entails are not worth the risk, despite the ready and willng market that Chicago represents.

The bottom line is that no matter their original intent, the Illinois distrubution laws have become an abusive bully masquerading as a nanny state on behalf of large distributors interests and against everyone else's. And despite this being realized by 99% of the people who know such laws and who have a positive interest in the distribution of craft beers, little is likely to change because of the immense political power weilded by the the remaining 1% (major IL distributors).