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Craft Brewery

During Covid, Half Time had less availability in enabled their customers to have a better idea of
terms of seasonal releases such as Pumpkin Beer. what they were buying, even though they could not
“We had a lot of challenges in getting seasonal sample the beers themselves.
products this year as craft beer manufacturers are
focused on making and distributing their core prod- While Tavour does not have any firm dates regard-
uct releases,” Daniels said. ing when in-person events can happen again, they
hope to resume them in 2022. Currently, they are
Moving forward, Daniels does not foresee any working to help put on the Barrel and Flow Festival,
changes to their marketing strategies, adding that a Pittsburgh-based celebration of black arts and
Covid changed buying behaviors, specifically with a artists.
significant increase in online shopping. “We antici-
pate this will continue as things open up. The high Localized Craft Beer Distribution
availability of online goods and shopping amplified
everyone’s ability to shop in different ways success- As the owner and sole proprietor of Packmule
fully.” Beverage, Brian Balland buys from breweries that
self distribute in Washington State and Oregon and
Tavour then sells these beers directly to consumers. He
delivers the orders to select breweries throughout
Tavour, a Seattle-based craft beer distributor, gets Washington State, where customers can then go
its beers directly from craft breweries. Once these pick them up.
products arrive at their facility in Washington State,
they market and ship them to their members across He developed this niche, direct-to-consumer ser-
the United States. vice for Pacific Northwest craft beer aficionados
who want to sample beers from smaller breweries
that only have these offerings available at their
brewery but are too remote for them to visit on a
regular basis.

Initially, Balland began this service by working
with brewers within his circle. Later he expanded to
include requests from customers for specific brew-
eries.

While he launched Packmule in September
2020, Balland conceived of this service pre-Covid.
However, he said, “Covid made it easier to try new
During Covid, they implemented major safety things and made consumers a little more malleable
modifications, including creating social distancing to trying new ideas rather than doing things the old
measures and increased sanitation for workers and way.”
the beers they distribute.
Since launching this service, Balland estimated he
Throughout the pandemic, Tavour ended up has pivoted twenty times, trying to figure out what
increasing its sales threefold. They attribute this will work best for the consumer. Moving forward,
growth to their SEO status increasing significantly, Balland plans to con-tinue offering Packmule’s
leading the company to be listed in the top five services for consumers in the Seattle and Portland
searches for craft beer delivery. area.

They also observed that since people could not DIY Beer Distribution
attend breweries or beer festivals in person, they
were looking for new ways to try craft beer. Tavour Given that both owners of StormBreaker Brewing
filled this need with accurate tasting notes for all in Portland, Oregon, have experience working for
their offerings, capitalizing on their bevy of prod- a distributor or a logistics company, they chose
uct samples and quality taste testers. These notes to apply these skills in assessing how to distribute

BEVERAGE MASTER December - January 2022 5

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