(Springfield, MO) — Mother’s Brewing Company of Springfield enjoyed the largest first-year launch of any new craft brewery in America in 2011.
According to the Brewer’s Association, which tracks calendar year sales for more than 1,400 brewery members throughout North America, 250 new craft breweries opened in 2011, the largest number since 1997. Based on these numbers, Mother’s achieved the largest launch of any new brewery since 2007 in their first calendar year of operation.
Jeff Schrag, owner of Mother’s, said, “We are humbled and honored to have such broad community support. We spent a bunch of time developing great beers and establishing a strong identity. We try to communicate love in everything we do and that has really resonated with the community. People want to root for their brewery like they want to root for their sports team.”
For the seven months in 2011 it was brewing and selling craft beer, Mother’s was exclusively distributed by Heart of America Beverage, with warehouses in Springfield and Joplin. Currently, Mother’s is available in Southwest Missouri in Springfield, Branson and Joplin. It is also available in Southeast Missouri in Poplar Bluff, Cape Girardeau and north to Jefferson County. Mother’s recently expanded into Kansas City (both Missouri and Kansas) and is adding new accounts there during the summer. Schrag plans to slowly expand distribution throughout Missouri and into contiguous states. “We want to focus on places we can drive to in four hours or less so we can really support our distributors and be in touch with our customers.”
Schrag credits part of Mother’s success to the brewing philosophy. “We brew for flavor and not for style. Generally our beers are a mishmash of several styles or elements of those styles. We put mother’s love into every beer we brew.” Three Mother’s beers are available year-round: Three Blind Mice – Brown Beer, Towhead – American Blonde, and Mother’s Lil’ Helper – India Pale Ale. Regular seasonal styles rotate between Sandy, Old School, Winter Grind, and a new Spring seasonal in 2013. Single batch brews are also available in smaller quantities. These include Foggy Notion, Uber Pils, Imperial Three Blind Mice, Trouble Maker, Fancy Pants and Holy Molé.
Demonstrating love by giving back is also important to Mother’s. Schrag explains, “We support all kinds of charity events. In just our first year, we participated in hundreds of events by donating beer or by donating prizes for auctions.”
Mother’s Brewery resides on five acres in downtown Springfield, in a renovated building constructed in 1902. Appropriately, it formerly housed a bottling company and then a bakery. Free tours of the brewery are available every Saturday afternoon at 2, 3, and 4 pm along with complimentary tastings. The next major event at the brewery is Oktoberfest in the Ozarks on Saturday, Sept. 8, 2012.
More news and events can be found at MothersBrewing.com or at Facebook.com/mothersbrewingco.
