Data on Bourbon County Stout, managing distributor relationships

Supplier relationships are hard. Deliveries go wrong, a keg doesn't show. What should you do when it does go wrong? How can you prevent it from going wrong in the first place?

Longtime bar owner and podcaster Zach Mack knows his way around these problems. Here are some key takeaways from our interview with him:

• Strive to be the bar that reps want to hang out at after they finish their day. It's good for your relationship with them, and you'd be surprised how often they can help in a pinch (think missing tap handles, etc.).
• The best hack for handling a distributor/supplier problem is to have a good relationship with your rep in the first place. Tough conversations are made much easier when you know the person you're working with. Improve your relationships with your reps!
• If you're trying to establish or improve relationships with suppliers, go out and meet them in the wild at events. You can't go to every event, so pick your spots. Example: go to bar anniversary parties. Lots of the local industry will be there, meaning you can network a bunch in one place.

Zach shared a ton more tips on this topic, so check out clips from the interview to learn more.

Goose Island's Bourbon County Brand Stout is a craft beer giant. For many beer drinkers, its annual Black Friday release is stout season's starter pistol.

But in 2022, fewer people searched for it than in any recent year.

BeerMenus.com pageviews to all Bourbon County products (they release a bunch of variants each year) have declined 66% since 2019. Compared to last year they're down 28%.

What does this mean?

It's hard to say. It's possible the decline is simply due to its increasing ubiquity: finding Bourbon County used to be a cutthroat affair. But due to production increases it's now available virtually everywhere, meaning drinkers no longer have to search online for which beer stores have it in stock.

But it's also possible that the popularity of Bourbon County itself—or even big, barrel-aged beers more broadly—is declining.

• Qatar isn't allowing beer sales inside World Cup stadiums, but you can still track it down elsewhere in the country.
• The current drought in Mexico could be problematic to global beer production.
• In case you missed it: In early November Athletic Brewing got a $50 million investment from Keurig Dr. Pepper. Jury's out on whether their NA beers will soon be available in disposable pod form.

This is the first edition of our Brave New Bar newsletter, so we're very curious to hear what you think. If you have thoughts, opinions, or feedback on anything we included, please just reply to this email.

Cheers!

And last of all, please enjoy our meme of the week: