Entrepreneurs / Small Business  May 26, 2016

Twisted Pine Brewing halting distribution to focus on taproom

BOULDER – One of Boulder’s oldest craft breweries, Twisted Pine, is ceasing distribution at the end of this month to focus efforts completely on booming business at the company’s taproom and restaurant at 3201 Walnut St.

Brewery spokesman Justin Tilotta said Twisted Pine has been whittling down its distribution network since last year. All distribution partnerships will be terminated by the end of the month, though Tilotta said it might be a couple of months before customers see stock completely exhausted from store shelves.

Tilotta said Twisted Pine will continue to service a few local restaurant accounts with kegs, but “it will be pretty minimal.” The only bottled products will now be available solely at the brewery.

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Founded in 1995, Twisted Pine added a kitchen and restaurant in 2010, and has undergone multiple expansions since. While distribution has continued to grow in recent years, business in the “ale house” has far surpassed the distribution side. About 70 percent of revenue recently has come from the ale house, Tilotta said. All of those changes have been organically moving Twisted Pine toward more of a brewpub model, and now the company has simply decided to take it a step further.

“No matter what we put into the distribution side of the equation, our business here at the ale house has outpaced it steadily,” Tilotta said. “That’s the kind of business we want to do ultimately. It’s more rewarding to deal directly with the end customer.”

In addition to responding to demand in the ale house, Tilotta said the change will allow the brewery to offer a wider variety of beer in the taproom since it won’t have to worry about keeping store shelves stocked with a few core beers.

“A lot of what we really love about this model and this move is the control aspect and being able to just kind of do what we want,” he said.

Tilotta said Twisted Pine, which has roughly 25 to 30 employees, has not had to cut any jobs, though a couple of people have been reassigned to new duties.

Twisted Pine, which produced about 6,000 barrels of beer annually at its peak, is expected to produce about 3,000 this year. Tilotta, who declined to disclose revenue of the private company, said the brewery will keep lots of its current equipment, though some might be downsized to accommodate brewing smaller batches.

The brewery’s packaging area for the past year or so has been used as a sort of convertible space that could host events and private parties, which will likely continue. But Tilotta said Twisted Pine leaders are still hashing out what other changes or new features might occur at the ale house once distribution is halted.

“We have a lot of ideas on the drawing board now,” he said.

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