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January 8, 2013

Bottle broker banks on brewery boom

By Matt Dodge

The East Coast's largest imported bottle distributor has relocated its headquarters to Portland in hopes of capitalizing on the area's growing beer industry.

Hauser Packaging Inc., formerly of Norfolk, Mass., has rented office space at 44 Exchange St. in downtown Portland and has been reaching out to small local fermenters and distilleries that might be looking for a new vessel for their beer, wine, mead or cider.

"We sell to the brewing industry and [Portland] is a hotbed," says Tom Hauser, president of Hauser Packaging. "The market is expanding here."

Statewide, there are 31 breweries with eight located in or near downtown Portland.

The company brokers glass bottles, sourcing much of its stock from Europe and Mexico, and maintains a warehouse in upstate New York. It offers specialty bottles that are particularly popular with smaller craft brewers or larger breweries looking to do a limited run of a new brew.

"[Hauser's] bottles are not the standard size we use for our regular production, but a growing part of the market is specialty release [beers]," says Heather Sanborn, co-owner of Portland's Rising Tide Brewing Co.

Rising Tide has used such bottles, putting a limited run of barrel-aged beers into distinctive 375-milliliter "cork and cage" bottles particularly popular among Belgian-style craft brewers like Portland's Allagash and Quebec's Unibroue.

"We don't have any need right now, but once we do need to reorder, we will certainly be talking with Hauser again," she says. Rising Tide produces 511 barrels a year, making it the state's 11th largest brewery.

"Quite a lot of our costs come from glass. Hopefully having a local broker will reduce shipping costs," says Sanborn, noting that Quebec is the primary source of European bottles in the local market.

Dan Kleban, president of the Maine Brewers Guild and co-owner of brewery Maine Beer Co., says glass shipping costs are a constant issue for small brewers.

"Bottle costs are a significant expense in the overall cost of the beer itself," he says.

But Kleban is not sure that the arrival of Hauser will dramatically change the local market for bottles. Maine Beer Co. currently sources its bottles from Europe through a Canadian distributor, so Kleban doesn't expect that Hauser will offer a dramatic price cut.

But both Sanborn and Kleban say they try to shorten their supply chains whenever possible.

"The more locally sourced [material] we can support, the better it is for craft breweries, especially smaller ones who can get more individual attention," he says.

Tami Kennedy, Shipyard Brewery's director of communications, says that the brokerage service's move to Portland is intriguing and stands to benefit local brewers. At over 76,000 barrels a year, Shipyard is the state's largest brewery, and purchases its glass from North America's largest manufacturer of glass containers, Owens-Illinois.

"It doesn't surprise me that [Hauser] chose to have a presence in Portland, and having someone here seeing and understanding our marketplace is a really good thing," says Kennedy. "Having a good relationship with a supplier is critical for any company using any glass, especially smaller breweries."

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