(Milton, DE) – Breaking news from Dogfish Head. Founder, Sam Calagione, just sent out this note via email.
Hello there. As you might remember, in 2011, we made the difficult decision to scale back Dogfish Head’s distribution. With a heavy heart, we stopped sending beer to Tennessee, Indiana, Wisconsin and Rhode Island.
It wasn’t our goal to upset Dogfish Head fans and distributors, but with demand so far in front of supply, we just couldn’t brew enough beer. We were left with a choice: leave shelves empty and frustrate beer enthusiasts everywhere, or stay true to our off-centered roots, pull back, and focus on strong, smart growth.
We chose the latter, and although it caused some short-term disappointment, we’re glad we did. Dogfish Head is still family owned, we still brew 100 percent of our off-centered ales ourselves here in coastal Delaware, and we’re continuing to change the way people think about beer.
We have maintained double-digit growth in the past few years while investing in our brewery to increase capacity beyond the 200,000-bbl pace we are now at. This expansion will be completed in a few months, and we’ll finally have the capacity to reopen the markets we had to pull out of.
We’re happy to announce that we’ll be hunting for distribution partners and regional sales managers in those four states and plan to be on shelves and taps there before the end of the year.
Many thanks to the craft beer lovers in Tennessee, Indiana, Wisconsin and Rhode Island for hanging in there and having us back!