Brewing Ambitions: Can the market sustain seven breweries?

The trend of home-based brewers attempting retail sales is repeating itself throughout the region and across the nation.

In the latest move, Charley Norton and Keith Davis are trying to raise enough capital to move Prehistoric Brewing Co. LLC from Norton’s garage into a proposed southeast Springfield taproom. It’s the third such microbrewery announcement this year, all following the February opening of the city’s fourth brewery, Lost Signal Brewing Co.

The Prehistoric Brewing business partners are offering 999 shares, representing about 49 percent of their company, to gain $650,000 and open a 5,000-square-foot bar and brewery within a year.

Norton said they started planning before Mother’s Brewing Co. launched in 2011, but decided to wait and see how the market responded to a second brewery before getting serious about their ambition. Prehistoric Brewing was incorporated in November 2014, according to Missouri secretary of state records.

“We’ve been doing our research, doing our recipes,” Norton said. “And we’re to the point right now where we’re ready to go and we’re just looking for investors.”

If the money materializes, Prehistoric Brewing would join the established Springfield Brewing Co., Mother’s Brewing Co. and White River Brewing Co. The two others in the works are 4 by 4 Brewing Co. LLC, which plans to open by September near Sequiota Park, and Tie & Timber Beer Co., which is targeting an early 2018 opening in the Rountree neighborhood. Additionally, Hungry Hollow Brewing Co. plans to begin bottling in Cassville in July, with distribution reaching Springfield.

Bubbling up
If all plans come to fruition, that’d make seven full-scale microbreweries operating in the city, begging the question: Can the market support that many?

“It just depends on everybody’s unique business,” said Andy Pearsall, co-owner of home-brewery supply store Show-Me Brewing. “And what kind of different niche they are filling – if they make certain styles of beer that other breweries aren’t making.”

Bart Watson, chief economist at the Brewers Association, a national not-for-profit that represents American small and independent craft brewers, said Springfield has fewer breweries per capita than cities with comparable sizes and demographics. He said craft breweries traditionally have done well in smaller, wealthier cities with a college presence.

“There are little pockets all over the country where … they develop a beer culture,” Watson said. “Grand Rapids, Michigan, is a good example of a town that has a lot of breweries per capita, including some fairly large ones, and seems to be supporting them all in a healthy way.”

At the current rate of expansion, Springfield, with a population of 167,000, would have about half the number of Grand Rapids’14 breweries for a population of 196,000, according to the Brewers Association website.

“One brewery going in is not necessarily a zero-sum game; it actually may create some additional demand,” Watson said. “There’s a point at which that obviously ends. The town can’t support 100 breweries, but it’s not that adding one more means there’s room for one less.”

At 5,300 breweries, there are more operating in the United States than ever before, Watson said, and successful local breweries can fuel more business. The overall growth rate in 2016 was 16.6 percent, and the vast majority – 5,234 – are smaller, craft-beer manufacturers, according to Brewers Association data.

“You get some small breweries to come in, and beer lovers in the area get introduced to fuller-flavored products from local producers, and rather than sucking up the demand, it creates more demand,” he said.

Additionally, for every brewery that closed last year, nearly three more opened.

Starting small
Show-Me Brewing, where Norton has bought some of his supplies, opened in April 2016 and started serving its own brews a couple months later.

“Most people get started in homebrewing as a hobby,” Pearsall said. “They’re just making beer for themselves and friends. And then, some people just start getting into it more … and then usually they’ll have a dream of opening their own brewery.”

Show-Me Brewing, at 1925 E. Bennett St., offers brewing classes, he said, and on-site brewing equipment for students.

“The typical homebrew-size batch is about five gallons,” Pearsall said.

Software, such as BeerSmith and Brewer’s Friend, helps scale recipes to any size, he said, and there are local manufacturers that make larger equipment. But, going from homebrewing to a taproom also requires federal and state manufacturer licenses, he said, as well as city, state and county liquor licenses.

Longtime brewer and Cassville resident Joe Zucca just received his state and federal licensing. After 11 months of planning, he’s ready to launch a home-based craft brewery next month under the label Hungry Hollow Brewing Co.

“Opening a brewery is a long process, from applying for licensing … to building out the brewery itself,” said Zucca, most recently the head brewer at Bike Rack Brewing Co. in Bentonville, Arkansas. “And I’m excited to finally share my beers with other craft brew lovers.”

Zucca started as a homebrewer, he said, before brewing for Boulevard Brewing Co. in Kansas City, from 2003 to 2005. He then traveled to Copan Ruinas, Honduras, for nearly a year to help set up D&D Brewing Co.

The Hungry Hollow facility can make 15 barrels of beer and fill about 2,400 750-milliliter bottles a month, Zucca said. He built some of the equipment himself, and spent $30,000 finishing the 900-square-foot brewery in a building on his 4-acre property.

Watson said the average commercial operation costs $500,000 to open and will produce less than 1,000 barrels per year.

“People in Missouri, when they think of a brewery, probably think of Anheuser Busch,” he said. “AB in the U.S. makes 95 million barrels [per year]. The (5,234) small breweries in the country, together, make about 25 million barrels. So it’s a very different scale.”

Zucca plans to distribute in local retail stores and restaurants throughout southwest Missouri – including Springfield and Joplin – with the help of two employees.

“I have a feeling Springfield’s going to be the biggest town to do it in,” he said.

The brewery does not have a public tasting room, but Zucca is planning an off-site retail location.

Brewers Association data show microbreweries with tasting rooms grew production last year by 33.7 percent, while distribution-only manufactures grew by 18.8 percent.


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