Brewers Guild Enters Spotlight

Oct 11, 2023

As the Los Angeles Brewers Guild gears up for its first Independent Beer Festival in four years this coming weekend, there is much for the local beer scene to reflect upon.

The festival, which will take place in Long Beach, is bringing out nearly all of the 75-member Brewers Guild to showcase their various beverages, hawk swag and network amongst themselves. The event kicks off a full week of festivities for the guild and its members, who all in their own ways fought for their breweries and restaurants during the Covid-19 lockdowns.

"There is so much excitement," said Samantha Schmitz, president of the brewer's guild and co-owner of Lucky Luke Brewing in Palmdale. "We haven't done this event since 2019 and I think we all kind of took for granted how much it was missed just because of the chaos of it all."

In that chaos, established breweries were forced to pull the trigger on operational changes they were considering — or to reinvent themselves from step one. Others, through the tenacity of their founders, managed to launch and have a grand opening during the height of the pandemic.

For Laurie Porter, a co-founder and co-owner of Smog City Brewing Co. in Torrance, the pandemic provided a weird situation where "no rules or expectations" from customers meant they could try out even the most novel of ideas.

"All customers wanted was for their favorite business to succeed, so if you came into it with that mentality, you could make changes to your brand or business model that people in normal times would question," she said. "It gave us opportunities, as an established business, to step outside of the existing processes we were in and say, ‘How could we do this faster? How could we do this better? How could we have more fun?’ You were able to look at things more differently and that was a great part of it."

Pandemic responses

One of the first responses to the pandemic in 2020 was to close all in-person dining and drinking, relegating eateries to carry-out or delivery service only. This negatively impacted breweries, because not all of them have food operations — or even the ability to bottle or can their beverages.

Depending on their scale, breweries often can only offer their beers and other beverages in their own taprooms, while others primarily distribute through kegs to local bars and restaurants.

For many, the prospect of buying and installing a canning system is economically unfeasible, as costs start between $130,000 and $160,000 and potentially reach seven figures for larger operations, and that doesn't include installation. Or a canning system could be physically impossible, given the limited space some work in.

Even those that had existing relationships with a mobile canning service found themselves taking a number to wait. Complicating matters, this scramble to pivot from tap to takeaway meant that breweries were some of the first businesses to encounter supply chain shortages.

"If you didn't have your beer in bottles and cans and suddenly you’re a to-go model, how the heck do you do that? It was a scramble for a lot of people to be able to accommodate that," said Schmitz. "You can imagine, Covid hits and (mobile canners) are totally booked up. If you didn't have your own equipment, then you were kind of left a little bit in the dark."

At the end of the day, breweries were forced to make it happen, even if they’d never planned to do it.

"We were actually never going to package out of this space. We were always thinking we would get a production space and package out of there as far as cans go. When Covid happened, we had no way of getting beer out," said Kimberly Rice, head brewer at Echo Park-based Sage Vegan Bistro & Brewery. "We ended up buying a canning line, which has proved very useful for us because we’re a smaller operation and can package smaller amounts than a mobile canner is willing to do."

When outdoor dining was permitted, that opened a lifeline for breweries and their taprooms. The brewery has been synonymous with food trucks for years, and some operations have in-house food kitchens that allowed an operation to invite customers for a meal — and a drink from the tap.

This worked out well for Sage, which also has locations in Pasadena, Culver City and Agoura Hills, because customers knew it first as a restaurant before they got into brewing.

"I think it's been a roller coaster for everyone the last couple of years," Rice said. "Because we had restaurants first, it's been a struggle to get people to think of it as a brewery as well, but I think we’re starting to get up there."

Smog City, which has two Torrance locations and taprooms in Long Beach and Glendora, had just ordered its canning machine in December 2019. It delivered on March 23, 2020. On top of canning its signature brews, Smog City also debuted a series of beers via can under the "Strange Times" moniker as a creative observation of the pandemic.

"We had maybe a six-month plan to roll out all of our beers into cans," Porter said, "and we just hard-pivoted into it."

Other models

There's recalibrating your business during a crisis, and then there's expanding — or launching — an enterprise during one.

Beny Ashburn and Teo Hunter have spent the last seven years building their brewery, Crowns & Hops Brewing Co., into a recognizable brand. They’ve done so by guest brewing at Three Weavers Brewing Co. in Inglewood and working to place their beers in craft bottle shops, major outlets such as Costco and venues like SoFi Stadium and Dodger Stadium.

The duo had plans to open up a physical taproom years ago.

"Then the pandemic hit," Hunter said. "We didn't even know what to do at that point. We really didn't have a huge strategy for a while."

Part of Ashburn's and Hunter's vision for Crowns & Hops was to create a space for Black beer connoisseurs like themselves to congregate and build and celebrate craft beer culture. They said they found the need for this enterprise after finding they were often the only Black people at other breweries.

"It started out with a simple love for beer itself, for the community of craft and the culture of craft, but more importantly, it grew from noticing the huge void of diversity of people in the craft beer space," Ashburn said. "We realized seeing people of color inside of craft beer and educating people of color about craft beer was step one into building a community that we can start to own and feel that cultural ownership that we missed out on."

Their brand started off with hosting beer-tasting events at locations like barbershops, clothing stores and sneaker shops, Ashburn said. They then dove into brewing for themselves, following a successful model others have done — including Smog City.

In a strange way, it worked out when the pandemic started. And now, they’ve found a location in Inglewood where they plan to open up their own taproom later this year.

"The opportunity for us to pivot our business model and create a distribution vertical, which was not part of our plan, was great for us because, moving forward, we will not only have the physical space, but we’re also in distributing in a significant way," Ashburn said. "The focus now is on having that taproom and physical space, so we’ll have two successful models to drive revenue, with the hopes of having distribution nationwide, which we would have initially gotten to a lot later. We got there a lot faster because of Covid."

Still, it's going to take a lot of effort to get there. To start, the duo looks to have just the taproom, while continuing to guest-brew offsite. Later on, they hope to add a food component and eventually add the on-site brewing capability.

"Opening a brewpub is an extremely capital-intensive project, and if you don't have resources readily available or a network of capital to tap into, it can be a bit of a challenge, coupled with delays because of Covid and new processes put in place because of Covid," Hunter said. "It has been a taxing experience. We are actively raising now. We’re not trying to create something small here."

Expanding industry

It's clear that the local industry will have much to celebrate. Most businesses can take pride in surviving through the pandemic. And despite the closure of at least six breweries since 2020, overall, the landscape has wildly expanded in the last decade. Since 2013, the number of breweries in L.A. County has grown from about 15 to nearly 80.

Schmitz said she feels like more cities in the county have become open to them in recent years, and the people trying to start one no longer have to explain to community residents and leaders what a craft brewery is.

"Some cities are going to be more friendly than others. For the ones that really support them, I think they offer such a unique outlet for people together," she said. "We give back to our communities so much. I don't know a single owner who isn't involved in their community in one way or another. It's the most connected that I’ve seen business owners as a whole.

"I think it's becoming a staple in local cities," Schmitz added.

One of the breweries that has seen it all in L.A. County is Eagle Rock Brewery, which at its 2009 founding was reportedly the first production brewery to open in Los Angeles city limits since before Prohibition.

After seeing keg sales to restaurants and bars — 70% of its revenue — suddenly stop, Eagle Rock made the challenging pivot to canning. Co-founder Ting Su said that investment paid off for them, considering how restrictions oscillated and how the pandemic ultimately altered the habits of consumers. It was a move the brewery had been considering, and the pandemic "pushed us along rather assertively," Su quipped.

"We’re not fully back to where we were pre-pandemic, but it's kind of a rebirth if you will. The landscape has changed quite significantly," she added. "Consumer habits have changed substantially since the pandemic. People are more inclined to stay in, so that pivot we made with packaging more in cans and formats available to take home has certainly helped out. The food and beverage industry and breweries, we’re all kind having to feel out how peoples’ habits have changed."

Nearly the entire membership of the brewers guild is participating in the beer fest, as well as the other parts of beer week. For those that formed during the pandemic, it will be their first such event. For industry veterans like Schmitz and Su, it will be enjoyable to see the new members experience the celebration for the first time.

"It brings me back to when we first opened and the excitement of being at a festival and seeing your beer in the wild, or seeing someone wear your shirt for the first time," Schmitz said.

Su noted that L.A.'s craft beer scene is still relatively young and that she has enjoyed watching her peers "grow and blossom" here over the years.

"The unique benefit we have in being a young community is the diversity in it," she said. "Some of the older beer scenes, there's just not as much diversity, and by virtue of being in L.A., which is such a diverse city anyways, there's been a lot more opportunities for women to get involved in the beer industry. There are people of color getting involved. I feel the community here is much more representative of the general population, and with it, different styles and vibes among the different brews."

Porter, who is chair of the California Craft Brewers Association, also highlighted the diversity of L.A. and its beer scene.

"We have just an awesome variety and that allows our fans to find their brewery, to find the thing that resonates most with them," she said. "I feel like L.A. has this super dynamic craft beer scene that older established scenes don't. I think it comes from us being so new and being allowed to find our own path."