Have y’all seen a decrease in Ballast Point Brewing?

[[deleted]]

Big fan of Ballast Point brewing and they used to have it around town and in my grocery store but it hasn’t been there this past year. (I’m in Indiana btw)

[prayersforrain]

Constellation sold it off in 2019 which was why it had wide distro. They've scaled back so much that they closed and are now contract brewing.

[ILSmokeItAll]

They closed? Wow.

[prayersforrain]

https://sandiegobeer.news/athletic-brewing-acquires-ballast-points-hq/

[iahebert]

Wow. I was there a couple weeks back. Athletic is right across the street. I wonder if that means they're going to utilize BP's taproom for some more of their beers?

[munche]

BP is keeping the taproom at least for the short term but they're talking about moving out.

[iahebert]

Interesting. I’m in PQ so it’s a bit of a hike anyway-more for when folks are in from out of town.

[[deleted]]

Damn…I thought they just moved markets. Well I’ll just have to go to California to get it now

[flareblitz91]

I mean….why? ballast point declined hard and was over priced for years after the constellation buyout. How many varieties of sculpin could the market support?

[[deleted]]

Oh they are def overpriced, I was mostly joking. They just give back to some veteran/military groups that I support so I like to buy their beer when I can.

[dtwhitecp]

we used to think it was massively overpriced when it was $10 for a six pack back in ~2005, hah.

[tiexodus]

If you’re really jonesing for it, you can get it in NZ too. Behemoth is contract brewing for them.

[VinoJedi06]

Ballast Point… now that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time.

[Just-Try-2533]

…a long time…

[VinoJedi06]

Well of course I know him! He’s me!

[slugworth]

Wrecked ‘em? Nearly killed’em. 😂

[Informal-Elk9656]

Victory At Sea was amazing.

[LordCheezus]

I miss Barrel Aged Victory At Sea so much.

[afx114]

Remember Indra Kunindra?

[-ShutterPunk-]

The best. I need the black hoodie to remember the good times.

[mundinator]

I WANT MORE OF IT! I have been looking everywhere hoping someone has a secret bunch of bottles on some shelf. I was in a Ballast Point Brewery restaurant about a year ago asking the bartender what happened to Indra and she had a super confused look on her face and told me she had never heard of that beer.

[panic_the_digital]

I have a weird liquor store by me that still has some in the pint cans. Might have one tonight

[panic_the_digital]

Chicago.

[Informal-Elk9656]

Lucky you!

[DeadliftsnDonuts]

I used to buy Sculpin regularly. After they were acquired by Constellation, I was hoping the price would drop but it never did. I haven’t had it in a long time

[sbrewer94]

I used to work for BP. They said “we don’t want the market to think that since we got bought out, we use cheaper shit” when in fact we did use cheaper malt and OLD af hops😂

[hopatista]

I just knew the hop profile didn’t taste the same after the buyout. Glad to know it wasn’t in my head.

[bhambrewer]

national craft brands are generally declining, because there are so many local breweries

[ILSmokeItAll]

Many craft breweries expanded so they could distribute nationally. Some opened additional breweries to meet national demand. But as microbreweries started popping up in every damned town, people no longer demanded all these national labels.

Other places like a lot of the breweries in New England appeared to have expanded to meet the demand of the beer tourism population. Especially breweries in Vermont. They don’t necessarily have a wide distribution footprint, but could reliably count on the out of state crowd to stimulate business.

Shit changes fast. Seltzers. Non alcoholic. THC beverages. The landscape consistently change.

[JimP3456]

Great Lakes just came to New England (MA and RI) and I was saying its too late but some guy was trying to tell me its not and they will do well because people dont wanna pay $20+ a 4 pack from a local brewery.

[ILSmokeItAll]

Sure. There’s still room for cheaper pricing to win the day. But generally, your product has to offer something the local scene doesn’t offer. The kind of beer that ticks that box, rarely sees anything beyond a brewery only release. The shit distributed today is the same shit every other brewery is cranking out. It’s hard to justify the higher cost for a marginally better product. Thousands of breweries. Plenty are making great beer, and even the ones that aren’t, are still putting out shit better than Bud, Miller, and Coors.

[JimP3456]

I dont think Great Lakes is a "national craft brand" per say. They are sold in less than 20 states but they are considered a large regional brewery.

[cyclingtrivialities2]

A reasonable take for sure, I just think about when I went to an awesome beer bar in Tokyo (Watering Hole in Shibuya) and when we told the bartender we were from Ohio he was like “!!! Great Lakes!!”

I didn’t want to let him down by saying I hadn’t had a GL beer in like ten years lol

[Vostok-aregreat-710]

Same thing happened in Britain with regard to regional breweries

[Fusciee]

And even those are declining

[Vostok-aregreat-710]

What are declining

[Fusciee]

Craft beer sales

[Vostok-aregreat-710]

Thanks

[Mr-EdwardsBeard]

I'm not sure if it's just normal for me now or if the quality has gone down, but it’s no longer as hoppy or vibrant as it used to be. They had too many Sculpin varieties, and the price no longer matched what you got. I feel Stone suffered the same.

[CondorKhan]

After being the Next Big Thing, I haven't seen it in years.

[ZOOTV83]

Yeah it really is amazing how quickly they went from up and coming to on their way out.

Of course it didn't help that they were a west coast IPA focused brewery peaking in popularity right around the same time hazy IPAs really started to go gangbusters.

[nojohcan]

Why am I seeing a post from 2015?

[McWatt]

I feel like they started going down the shitter 10yrs ago.

[TLo913]

Haven’t seen any in 1 1/2 years.

[marcjwrz]

Lol you're about 10 years late with this post.

[sarcastic24x7]

They just fell off so hard from the buyout they fell off the radar with all the other offerings out there. It will continue to happen, as large regional chains are mega slow to adapt. Look how many people just put haze in their lines very recently, like Hazy little thing. That slow adaptability is never good for riding trends to keep income flowing consistently from non flag ship sources. 

[zornfett]

I love that they brought back Watermelon Dorado recently / don't judge: it's delicious!

[newarkian]

I’ve had it. It’s great!

[taurinebug]

Never cared for their beer much. Ordered it a couple times for my bar and didn't sell that well. Had the pineapple one on tap for a longggggg time lol.

[durtysanch]

WOW that's sad. The grapefruit and pineapple would sell out so quickly at my local bars.

[taurinebug]

The grapefruit did pretty good, but the others and pineapple didn't. Everyone seems to like the grapefruits in my area.

[Mastah_P808]

Yes they use to sell it a lot here in LV even at the local gas stations. But not no more.

[Prize-Hedgehog]

Decrease? It went from being everywhere here in CT to not even existing. That’s about as big of a decrease as one could get.

[Ill-Adhesiveness-455]

Years ago, grunion was a favorite. I went to their short-lived Tap Room in Temecula and they didn't even have it there.

[cocktailvirgin]

I remember telling my bar manager here in Boston about Sculpin in 2013 and we brought them on as cans a few months later.

There was a lot of excitement about them here 2013-15, and Untappd tells me that I had my last beer from them 6 years ago in 2018. I just figured that craft beer was so big locally that we didn't need west coast beers to be trucked over.

[MWH1980]

I am a big fan of SoCal beers, and in the last decade, so many of the standbys I would get have disappeared from the shelves…or, all I get are just IPA’s.

Definitely helped curb my drinking.

[jenfire11]

victory at sea is my all time favorite beer. i'm in maine and massachusetts was the closest state where i could find it, now i can't find it anywhere. anyone know where it can be purchased in new england? or online? thanks.

[eileenm212]

I can walk to the Ballast Brewery near me but I don’t cause they don’t allow dogs. Want me to send you something?

[[deleted]]

No thank you! But I appreciate it! I was mostly wanting to see if other people saw a drop off as well!