Is the Reno craft beer scene sustainable? The future is hazy

For almost a decade, beer geeks have asked, "Is Reno oversaturated with beer, yet?" and the answer has been a resounding "Maybe? Surely some breweries will close as the competition stiffens."

Yet, no brewery has closed due to lack of business. More continue to open, expand their offerings and distribute out of state.

But while more than 28 local beer brands persist in the greater Reno-Tahoe area, they have not necessarily grown the craft beer-loving audience by a significant margin. Some brewers said they are all sharing the same few hundred or maybe thousand local beer geeks who have become a nomadic band of loyalists visiting their favorite spots.

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“Anyone looking at it thinks it has to be a saturated market," Imbib (pronounced imbibe) Custom Brews owner Matt Johnson said. "I don’t think it is, but if we only focus on the demographic of beer geeks, then we’re close to saturation. But I think there’s huge potential for out-of-towners and converts.”

In large part that's because of competition in a beer-soaked West Coast vying for mouths, but also because the region doesn't focus its tourism narrative on local breweries.

Some cities, like Sacramento; Denver and Boulder, Colorado; and Portland, Oregon; capitalize on their growing beer industry through messaging and local boosterism. But the Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitor Authority's website has no such page.

But why not? Nevada's craft breweries have become an industry responsible for $434 million in business revenue, wages and overall economic impact in 2016, according to the Craft Brewer's Association. Many breweries revive dilapidated buildings in older parts of town and have generated new jobs in the brewing, distribution and bar business.

Like the newly trending beer style, Reno's craft beer future is a little hazy.

Walk into any Reno bar and you'll find a cornucopia of craft beers — local or otherwise. A tourist visiting from Colorado, Northern California or western Oregon might find Reno has a superior selection at pretty much any bar worth its suds.

That selection sets the region apart as a desert island haven for beer lovers. More out-of-state brewers are catching on and distributing here, filling that demand for unique and curious beers.

Odell Brewing out of Fort Collins, Colorado, started distributing here this year, but its distributor found it more difficult to sell to bars than expected because of the competition.

Still, local brewers must compete with those regional and national brewers. The competition over tap handles is tough because there are only so many taps in the city that bar owners are willing to devote to lesser-known local beers.

Local beers can get pushed off easily by new trendsetters. So, bars rotate through a few local kegs at a time, never quite committing to high-volume purchases.

At the same time, local brewers try to distribute outside of Reno, but no one is as devoted to local beer as local bars.

Cameron Kelly, former sales director at Great Basin Brewing Co. in Sparks, has tried to sell Icky IPA to Las Vegas for years. Casinos and bars in Vegas don't even know what an Ichthyosaur is, and don't really care. It's the Nevada state fossil, by the way.

The casinos and chain bars have plenty of other non-Triassic-period themed beers to sell to thirsty tourists.

In the mind of the craft brewer, the battle over tap handles is both a battle to survive and a battle for ideology. The big domestic beers are cheap and easy for people who don't care about what they drink.

Budweiser and Coors represent "The Man" and all things corporate, boring and easy. Craft brewers want to convert you to the mythical mom-and-pop, drink-local mentality. But that's not always an easy sell.

That's where the tap houses and beer bars come in. Places like Mellow Fellow Gastropub in downtown Reno and BeerNV in south Reno play a role in introducing new craft beers to locals or tourists who otherwise might settle for well-known mass-market beers.

And while brewers make more money selling in their own tap rooms, they win new customers at craft bars because customers haven't yet become loyal to a particular brand. This is largely because many people will still choose something they know, but also because breweries are out of the way — tucked into downtown Reno's industrial districts, warehouse areas and so on.

“We’re banking on the fact that people are going to seek us out because we have good beer," Johnson said. "But at some point, that doesn’t work. You have to get your beer out there. I’m sure you have people in south Reno who dread driving to the 'beer district'."

So, the battle wages on. But there's yet another problem in the fight for business.

Brewers all over the country know they need to consistently come up with new flavors to keep people coming back. It's as if they're competing more with themselves than each other.

"We're all innovating all the time and it's crazy," Under the Rose Brewing Co. Owner Scott Emond said.

Great Basin Brewing Co.'s Cameron Kelly made an effort to sell specialty beer 412 Scytale Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout at tap houses instead of its flagship Icky IPA. It worked. Bars wanted the limited edition kegs instead of the beer Kelly has been trying to sell them for years.

While it's difficult for distributors to move one-off beers like this from brewery to warehouse to customers, Sabrina Sanders, general manager of craft brands at Vin Sauvage distribution, said one-off beers are exactly what's selling right now.

Small distributors like Vin Sauvage have an advantage over larger ones. Sanders' company can move small beers to market in a few days while others can take several weeks. Some beers spoil in that time or customers lose interest.

This consumer trend forces brewers to continue pushing extreme flavor profiles. What started as a friendly game of "who has the best pale ale" 20 years ago has turned into an all-out battle for who can leave a lasting impression on a drinker's tongue, and then move onto the next recipe before the flavor fades.

Beer has become more like deconstructed food than beverage. Brewers are ditching the old edict that told them to create 12 staples and a few seasonals. Now, the menu changes all the time and the ingredients are getting stranger and stranger.

The newest hot trend, hazy IPAs (also called New England-style IPA) were unknown a few years ago out West. Hazy IPAs are bitter hot messes of opaque, peach, pink or green beer filled with protein chunks, yeast remnants, hop acid and plant goo. They are only good fresh and have the potential for triggering people's allergies to yeast, gluten or pollen.

Those traits used to be considered mistakes, but today, the hazy IPAs are a treasure and it has been officially recognized as a real beer style.

Revision Brewing Co., the largest brewery in the region, has created a "Hazy Release" website for its customers. So far, it's released 14 different variations on the style in one year.

Next year, some other style will probably take its place.

Sanders said she sees German-style beers growing in popularity, which are the exact opposite of hazy IPAs. Soon, people will probably be hunched over the bar asking for some lager in another language.

Reno brewers tend not to follow national trends too closely, but they're also not so stupid as to ignore them.

Emond doesn't like IPAs personally and has tended to avoid making big ones because he doesn't think he'll be very good at it. But over the years, so many customers have begged him to make one that he often thinks about giving in.

With all this constant one-upping, where does beer go from here?

"We need to focus on quality in order to market Reno as a craft beer destination," Johnson said. "Craft beer on tap at more approachable bars and restaurants may bring in non-beer geeks, and it’ll probably continue to convert people."

Cameron Kelly said the best way to avoid the tap handle battle is to expand the brewery to a new location, grow a new audience, expand offerings and make better beer. It worked for Great Basin Brewing Co. It's working for Alibi Ale Works in Incline Village and Truckee, and now others are doing the same.

The breweries that opened before 2015 bootstrapped their way up. Under the Rose opened in a warehouse on Fourth Street with used equipment. StoneyHead Brewery opened in a warehouse east of the airport. Shoe Tree Brewing in Carson City converted a detached garage.

Like more recent brewery openings, Under the Rose expanded to Midtown with a brand-new brewery, bar and kitchen in March. Brewer's Cabinet opened a new taproom next door on Arlington Avenue. Other breweries, such as Lead Dog Brewing and 10 Torr, launched with bigger, more advanced equipment, fancier taprooms and strong line-ups.

Revision Brewing Co. in Sparks opened with the largest brewery in the region and has already expanded its capacity. It dominates the scene.

New local beer brands are opening less frequently, but the ones that open each year open with a lot of money and a plan to grow quickly.

Sabrina Sanders said that competition has made new brewers think twice about their expenses because as the competition stiffens, the cost to open increases. Huge stainless steel cylinders, high-quality barroom materials, water usage, health codes and real estate add up.

Reno is no longer the little beer startup town it once was. It's fermented into a regional beer city. Can it mature into a destination for beer tourism?

One way it was attracting tourists was with Reno Craft Beer Week. But this year, the event went on hiatus.

"A myriad of issues, both personal and professional, are hindering the proper execution of this worthy event," co-founder Don Vetter emailed to founders and early adopters. "New ideas, new management, new dates are all on the table for 2019 as we look to increase sponsor value, draw more beer travelers and let the world know that Northern Nevada is a hotbed of fine craft beers with a knowledgeable craft beer culture that can only get better."

So, in the meantime, bar owners are talking about replacing the week with something different in 2018. Craft beer week was full of a lot of large events but also small deals, tap takeovers and events that all competed for the same crowd. I mean, how many sour beer nights do you need in one day or one week?

This year, some bar owners are thinking they want to try to replace Reno Craft Beer Week with something highlighting fewer, high-quality events that will attract people to find unique experiences. The thought is still just that, though, so maybe in the fall something will coalesce.

But the region can't rely on a handful of events, it needs more draw and beer tourism on a regular basis, Matt Johnson said.

“We certainly see the impact of the brew scene," said Ben McDonald, Reno-Sparks Visitor Authority communication manager. "It’s something we’re focused on and devoted to."

The RSCVA produced a beer tour map three years ago, and it is still updated today. It can be found at hotels and casinos and tourist locations around town. After the interview with McDonald, the RSCVA published a beer and distilleries web page with links to individual pages for each one with a printable map.

But the authority's latest rebrand to attract tourists focused heavily on outdoor recreation, a little bit on nightlife and subliminally on beer.

Contrast that with Denver and Portland visitor sites, which include rich pages full of tourism destinations and activities surrounding local brews. And Bend, Oregon, which closely resembles the scale of Reno-Tahoe, includes a "Beer Town USA" section devoted to the craft.

"It’s not free to print those maps, but there is value there and we’re devoted to it," McDonald said. "I don’t know the timeline, but we recognize that’s something we need to improve. It’s a matter of time, to be honest.”

Beer is part of the larger narrative of Reno now, but perhaps that narrative is getting lost in the din of media attention about Tesla and housing.

In the last year, numerous national media outlets have published stories about the "new Reno," but few of them have mentioned the beer selection either on tap or in the breweries. Instead, they focus on technology companies, Midtown, restaurants or the housing crisis.

Perhaps that is because the collective quality of beer made in Reno-Tahoe still could be better. Perhaps it has not been as important for those authors to write home about their comparative experiences ... yet.

But that just means local brewers have room to grow. Living in one of the fastest-growing cities in the country will give them an opportunity to feed the demand for stronger, riskier selections from people used to drinking crazier, better-made beers back home.

There's no doubt that the best brewmasters will rise to the occasion to write a new narrative of the Biggest Little Beer Town. So pull up a chair, order a pint, and tell all your friends: Reno is next.