If it’s an international festival, such as the annual Mondial de la Bière in Quebec, the organizer’s responsibilities grow to include customs inspections, trade agreements, global transportation logistics, federal importation taxes and national governance of liquor control. Founder Jeannine Marois hires staff in more than 10 countries who scout for craft breweries that brew a quality product and demonstrate the wherewithal to handle the bureaucracy required to get their beer into Canada.
Though it takes a year to recruit the breweries—almost half of which are usually newcomers—Marois feels it’s the only way to deliver what her customers want: new beer.
“Nobody can travel all over the world. Mondial can bring the world to the people,” she says.
Breweries with wide distribution rely heavily on their sales forces to shop for festivals that will place them in front of receptive audiences. Smaller breweries are more tightly restricted by budget and manpower.
“We try to attend every festival within our trade area,” says Dan Kopman, co-founder of St. Louis Brewing Inc., which produces Schlafly Beer, distributed within 300 miles of its St. Louis headquarters, excluding Chicago. “In theory, we’d like to go to the GABF, but we never get around to filling out the application, mostly because it’s at a time when we have a lot of other festivals going on.”
“We get invited to just about every festival there is in North and South Carolina,” says Dave Fox, founder at Skull Coast Ale Co., which debuted its beer at the 2010 World Beer Festival—Raleigh, produced by All About Beer Magazine. “So we have to pick and choose based on demographics and size.”
Fox typically brings his road show—himself, a sales rep and his mascot, a costumed volunteer named Skallywag Pete. He targets major beer-drinking cities in the Carolinas, or markets where he’s releasing his brand or obscure fests that make good business sense, such as the one hosted by the Gastonia, NC, Grizzlies collegiate summer baseball team last May.
“We wouldn’t normally attend a festival with just 750 people,” he says. “But this one was worth the money because, here, the attendees vote on the beer that will be sold at games all season.”
Skull Coast won first and second place.
