The taproom was supposed to be the safe business: higher margins, direct customer feedback, no distributor taking a cut. Then the pandemic, then inflation, then a market with more breweries than the country has ever supported.
Now a growing number of small producers are buying used box trucks and doing the thing everyone warned them about. Self-distribution is unglamorous, expensive, and — for a certain size of brewery — suddenly the only route with a future.
The route sheet
A four-stop Tuesday in the western suburbs: two bottle shops, a restaurant, and a grocery chain that will take three cases and pay in 60 days. The truck gets 11 miles to the gallon. The driver is also the sales rep, the merchandiser, and the person who fixes the cooler door.
It works because the margins are visible. A case sold direct nets roughly twice what the same case nets through a wholesaler. It fails when the route gets longer than the truck can justify.
The breweries making it work are ruthlessly small and geographically dense. They are not trying to be in every store. They are trying to be in the right forty.