Craft brewers tap into booming industry

When the founders of Big Top Brewing Co. planned the opening of a craft brewery in Sarasota County, there were major questions about what kind of a market existed for the product in the area.

As the craft beer industry boomed on a national level, the almost inescapable trend seemed to largely miss Florida. 

Tampa-based Cigar City Brewing, which opened in 2008, had attracted wide acclaim by 2010, but no similar business was located in the Sarasota-Bradenton region.

Based on the strength of the local response to Tampa’s craft beer culture, Big Top CEO Mike Bisaha was hopeful about the demand for a Sarasota-based brewery. As the business ramped up for an early 2014 opening, however, it was lacking one thing: a blueprint for how to proceed. 

“That was probably the most challenging part — really having no idea what we’re doing,” Bisaha said.

Quickly, Bisaha and the Big Top team started seeing signs of success. Even before the brewery ordered three more fermentation tanks to increase its production capacity by 40%, before it saw its product on the shelves of Publix and on tap in restaurants the brewers had visited for years, there were signals that locals were ready to embrace a hometown brewery.

“When we finally started going, we realized so many people were coming in during our construction phase and were really excited,” Bisaha said.

If it’s not robust today, Sarasota’s craft brewery scene is at least blooming. Big Top, which distributes from Tampa to Naples, with markets in Orlando and Jacksonville as well, is preparing to ramp up its production capacity as those new tanks are installed in the brewery. With four breweries — Big Top, JDub’s Brewing Co., Motorworks Brewing Co. and Darwin Brewing Co. — now open in the Sarasota-Manatee region, brewers have a positive outlook on the future of the industry in the area.

Learning Curve

As Big Top was getting off the ground, Jeremy Joerger was operating on a parallel track. Still, as he developed plans for JDub’s Brewing Co., he wanted to get some pointers from people who seemed like they knew what they were doing.

About three years ago, he made a trip to Cigar City to solicit advice from owner Joey Redner. As he picked Redner’s brain, Joerger got an initiation into the world he was determined to join.

“Joey gets up, he hugs me, and he says, ‘Welcome to the fraternity,’” Joerger said. “That’s one of the hottest breweries in America, and I’m just some guy with a notepad and a dream.”

JDub’s also recently celebrated its one-year anniversary, and Joerger is hopeful that he can help create the same type of brotherhood on a local level that he felt during his meeting with Redner. He left behind a six-figure government salary and a fast track to early retirement to pour his life savings into opening JDub’s. Although the business is adding employees and Joerger is thinking about expansion, he’s not focused on the bottom line.

“My intent is to give the people of Sarasota and the people of Florida another brewery serving high quality product,” Joerger said. “If I can do that, I’m successful.”

He’s happy with the business and his community, but the first year of running JDub’s hasn’t come without its obstacles. In addition to challenges opening the first production brewery in the city — a challenge Big Top faced in Sarasota County — Joerger has been frustrated by a business and legislative environment that places power in the hands of distributors.

Those distributors get beers into bars and restaurants, but they’ve been tied to controversial state laws regulating the operations of craft brewers.  

Most notably for Joerger, the brewer-distributor conflict manifested itself in the form of a faceoff with Gold Coast Eagle Distributing, the local distributor for Anheuser-Busch and several craft breweries, including Big Top and Darwin’s Brewing Co. In April, the JDub’s Twitter account posted an email from Gold Coast Eagle owner John Saputo, applauding his sales team for reducing the number of JDub’s taps from 46 to 22.

Saputo chalked up that internal email to the nature of doing business in a competitive, capitalistic environment. He views the relationship between distributors, large breweries and microbreweries as mutually beneficial.

Saputo also said craft beer’s market share has been surging in Florida, with local craft beers driving the growth and allowing beer to capture a greater proportion of the general alcohol market.

“That’s the one thing about craft beer that has really helped our industry,” Saputo said. “Craft beers have a lot of different flavors, textures, ingredients, and we can be just as creative and innovative with our products now as the wine and the liquor people have been.”

Still, Joerger said he was upset by what he viewed as a backwards attitude that prioritized the distributor over the product itself. 

“I want to see people care about the beer — followed by the brewery — when it comes to what they’re going to order, rather than who distributes their beer,” Joerger said. “I don’t think we’re there yet.”

Looking Ahead

With Big Top and JDub’s finding their footing, residents can look forward to a third distribution craft brewery later this year.

Longboat Key natives Geordie Rauch and Vic Falck hope to see Calusa Brewing Co. opened within the next three to six months. Construction is underway on their south Sarasota brewery, located near the intersection of Clark and McIntosh roads.

As Calusa prepares for its opening, Rauch said one person who’s offered valuable advice is Bisaha. He hopes to get in touch with Joerger in the near future, and said that the camaraderie and cooperation between brewers helped make the foray into the corporate world less painful.

Both Joerger and Rauch  pointed to San Diego as an example of the potential for growth in the Florida brewing industry. Neither is too concerned about being crowded out of the field anytime soon.

“San Diego County alone has more than 100 craft breweries,” Joerger said. “Internally, I kind of chuckle about that. There’s just so much room.”

“We’ve had people ask — ‘Aren’t you worried about being the third?’” Rauch said. “No, it’s great. You don’t want to be the only one, because then there’s no craft beer culture.”

If Rauch does approach Joerger for advice before Calusa opens, he’s likely to get a warm reception — but also to find out that making your way in the craft brewing industry presents its own challenge to every brewer.

“Here’s the blueprint,” Joerger said. “You stick your foot on the gas pedal, you hang on to the steering wheel, and you hold on for dear life.”