Wholesale Change

Breweries and Upstart Distributors Are Writing New Rules for Selling Beer.

- Joshua M. Bernstein

Robby Roda suffered through no shortage of headaches as Cascade Brewing’s sales director. The Portland, Ore., brewery sold its fruited sours far and wide, meaning Roda dealt with distant distributors with varying degrees of giving a damn. “They were so reluctant to work with us and make changes to support us because they didn’t have to,” he says.

Like most breweries, Cascade signed franchise agreements with its wholesalers, the middlemen in America’s three-tier system. (In short: Breweries sell to distributors, which supply bars and stores.) The contract is a bit like a handcuff-bound marriage. “It’s almost like being held hostage by the Mafia,” he says. “It’s a big manipulation of the system.”

But Roda found a loophole. Oregon lets out-of-state breweries enter the market twice yearly for 30 days, at the princely sum $10 per visit. “I so generously pay it each time,” says Roda, who launched Day One Distribution in August 2016. He brings in buzzing brands such as California’s Monkish and Phantom Carriage for a fleeting instant. “It’s basically on and gone,” he says. Stock disappears before a brand’s luster fades, or beers accrue dust. “We keep it limited, keep it small, keep it special,” Roda explains.

In a less-cluttered craft era, when growing breweries signed with distributors and sent truckloads of stock hither and yon, the arrival of, say, Sierra Nevada was heralded like manna from heaven.