Brewers work together to save on shipping costs

We interrupt our normally hard-hitting journalism to bring you a story that will warm your heart and fill your glass. According to Denver Westword, four small Denver brewers all ordered from the same fermenter supplier to save on freight costs.

Freight costs can be pretty steep, depending on where you’re shipping from. We have had to pay over $1000 just to move a few pallets of kegs around. You add those little trips up, and it becomes a meaningful part of your business. Shipping won’t make or break us, but it does get its own line item in our accounting software. From Denver Westword:

In a show of solidarity (not to mention some penny-wise fiscal management) four small brewers are putting in an order for new brewing equipment and tanks in a move that will save them all a chunk of change and help them expand. Copper Kettle, Renegade, Strange Brewing and Caution are all buying from Premier Stainless Systems, a San Diego-based brewery system designer and manufacturer that supplies hundreds of beer makers around the country.

“Premier said there was no difference on shipping whether we bought four tanks or eight, so we decided to coordinate this together,” says Copper Kettle co-owner Jeremy Gobien. So, instead of paying $1,500 a piece, each brewery will only spend about $400.

Sure, they’re saving a few hundred bucks. But I think the bigger news here is the continued trend of small breweries working together, like Avery and Russian River’s Collaboration Not Litigation Ale. This is an industry like no other.

Drink up.

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