15 Nov Craft Brewery Anniversaries: Not So Different Than Peoples’ Birthdays
by Mark E. Lasbury for Indiana On Tap
Indiana On Tap recently had an article talking about all the different craft beer events that take place in October and November. It’s a busy time of year for beer festivals, competitions, and anniversaries. I was particularly struck by the large number of brewery anniversary celebrations I was adding to the Indiana On Tap calendar recently.
In November alone, Elm Street Brewing in Muncie, Broad Ripple Brewpub in Indianapolis, Great Crescent Brewery in Aurora, Trubble Brewing Fort Wayne, Backstep Brewing in Crawfordsville, Deer Creek Brewery in Noblesville, and Cannon Ball Brewing in Indianapolis have had/are having parties to celebrate their birthdays, and these are just the ones that have come across my FB feed recently. I’ll bet there are others. Backstep is actually celebrating their Brewversary on the 17th of November, not the opening of their establishment, but a year from the time they started brewing. It’s perfectly fine to massage your birthdate or change your age for a reason like this – people change their birthday and age all the time and for no good reason at all.
These parties range from extended hours and having discounted beer prices and food, to having live music, special beer releases, special menus, and games. Some breweries make a big deal of their birthday, others hardly acknowledge that it occurs – just like with people. For example, The Guardian Brewing in Muncie has a November anniversary and has celebrated this in the past but this year – nothing. That’s OK, they’ve had a bunch of events lately, and even some bottle releases, so it’s fine if they let a birthday slip by – people do.
Bloomington Brewing will have their 25th anniversary in 2019, so perhaps will get a big party to celebrate. image credit: Bloomington Brewing Co.
It’s as if some breweries try to hide their birthday and age – just like that aunt of yours. February, 2017 saw 95Ate5 Brew Pub’s first anniversary, but February, 2018 passed without so much as a peep out of them about their second. ZwanzigZ Pizza and Brewery in Columbus doesn’t distinguish much between the pizzeria and the brewery, and while they did start brewing in January of 2012, but they don’t spend much time (or any) celebrating that date. They just continue to make great beer.
I haven’t found an anniversary party or date recorded for Point Blank Brewing in Corydon, Shale Creek in Franklin, Noble Order in Richmond, or GnomeTown Brewing in Fort Wayne. Even Bloomington Brewing Co. hasn’t been loud in calling out their anniversary, although that may be different in 2019 as they celebrate their 25th birthday. Man Cave in Syracuse has a history that lasts more than a decade, but their brewpub opened just this year, so perhaps we’ll an anniversary party from them in 2019 as well.
This year (2018) has been a strong year for brewery openings in Indiana. There has been 24 breweries open their doors so far, with Auburn Brewing in that town opening this weekend (Nov. 17) and Mad Paddle Brewery in Madison trying to get open by December. In fact, only June of 2018 didn’t have at least one opening. March was tops with Maiden’s Brewery & Pub in Evansville, Happy Brewing in Indy (closed now and looking for a new location), Traders Brewing in Indy, Orthocity Brewery and Smokehouse in Warsaw, and Moontown Brewing in Whitestown all opening that month.
Again, humans are a good parallel for brewery birthdays, since there’s someone born every day of the year – many someones in fact. I doubt that you had much say in when you were born, and in similar fashion, it’s often up to someone else when breweries get to open. All those inspections, all done at the whim at the inspector and in a necessary order that may change over time can eat away months before open. Affirmative answers from one person could be negated by a second agency or open to a “re-interpretation” by other bureaucrats that costs even more time and money.
Mad Paddle had some issues to deal with, not of their own making, but now it looks like they approaching an opening. image credit: Mad Paddle Brewery
Take Mad Paddle in Madison for instance, they got an OK about opening a patio without adding sprinklers to the entire building at one point this past spring, only for this very issue to be the cause of a failed inspection later. Back and forth they went with the state and Department of Homeland Security, all the time not being able to open and earn back some of the money that their equipment, real estate, and everything else was costing them. First it was September, then November, and now December as opening dates. However, it looks like all the hurdles have been jumped successfully, so this time it might actually happen.
You can carry this example over to every brewery in some form or fashion, because they all have issues crop up before opening. The result is that rare is the establishment that opens on its projected date – very rare. Planning to open in the last half one year is likely to give you a February or March anniversary. That may be why there are 14 Indiana brewery anniversaries in February and 15 in March. January is a low month, but that is probably due to hangovers from the holidays. Beyond that, June through October are strong months for opening – surprisingly, just like for babies in the US (with the exception of September – who knows why).
Babies being conceived nine months previous to late summer and fall makes sense since these are the cold months, with people spending more time at home. But it’s not so simple with breweries, outside influences can have more to do with your opening than you do. This might be the reason that the first half of the year and the second half of the year have almost exactly the same number of brewery anniversaries. I had imagined that there might be tax advantages to opening before the end of a year (like how having a baby gets you the child tax deduction for the entire year), but the RBB group at Somerset CPAs tells me that there is no such advantage, and the equal openings in each half of the year bears that out.
However your favorite breweries celebrate their breweries, if they celebrate, you should join in and show your support. Brewing is a fairly lonely activity, why do you think they like doing collaborations so much? So seeing people come in to celebrate their establishment’s accomplishment is important. Small businesses are hard to keep running; making it one more year is indeed an achievement worth acknowledging publicly and loudly. People usually throw birthday parties for their friends or family, yet breweries are most often responsible for organizing their own party – we craft beer fans should do something about that.
banner image credit: Spoetzel Brewery
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