(Crain's) — The Groundhog Day blizzard has given new meaning to the phrase “Super Bowl Shuffle” for the area’s beer business.

The snowstorm and its messy aftermath have distributors and retailers scrambling to get beer supplies to customers for this weekend's football extravaganza — the biggest sales event in what otherwise is the beer industry’s slowest period of the year.

Beer and alcohol wholesalers and retailers were grounded Wednesday by as much as 20 inches of snow across the Chicago area. Now behind schedule, many distributors are planning to add a Saturday delivery to make sure that bars and grocers have plenty of brew in time for Sunday's 5:30 p.m. kick-off.

“With the Super Bowl this week . . . many customers are building inventory,” says Jimmy Hayes Jr., president of Hayes Beer Distributing Co. His two MillerCoors distributorships are based in Alsip and Rockford and cover most of Northern Illinois. Had the storm arrived next week, “it would probably be a non-issue,” he says.

Besides girding for the NFL championship game, many of Hayes Beer Distributing’s 2,600 customers bought additional supplies, as Chicago-based MillerCoors LLC is raising prices Monday in Chicago for the first time since 2009. Mr. Hayes expects consumers will pay an extra dollar per case on average for mainstream beer brands, while smaller-volume, premium-priced craft beers likely won’t change.

A MillerCoors spokesman would not say how much more the beer maker is charging wholesalers.

St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch Cos. also plans to raise Chicago market prices, according to several retailers. A spokesman for Anheuser-Busch could not confirm that.

Because many customers emptied store shelves during the pre-storm rush, retailers have little time to replenish supplies.

“Yes, we’ll be able to fill stores by next Monday or Tuesday, but the customer would have come in on Friday and Saturday to shop for the Super Bowl,” says Donna Spagnola, president of Broadview-based Central Beverage Co., wholesaler of Pabst Blue Ribbon, Bell’s and Old Style beers.

Super Bowl week isn’t the nation's biggest beer holiday. It ranks seventh behind even Halloween and Thanksgiving, according to New York-based retail tracker Nielsen Co. But it’s a critical one for brewers.

“February is a slow sports month, and the weather compounds that,” says Ken Donarski, general manager of McCook-based Burke Beverage Inc.

With a gap of more than two months between New Year’s Eve and St. Patrick’s Day and the Final Four college basketball tournament in March, “you really need to have the stuff out there available and in front of the people now,” he says.

Along with bread, milk and other staples, beer was a top seller at Itasca-based Jewel-Osco’s 167 area stores before the storm.

“We expect that to also be the case for the Super Bowl,” says a spokeswoman for the chain, which is owned by SuperValu Inc. of Eden Prairie, Minn. As for boosting inventory, “We will only say that we are constantly monitoring the inventory at each store to determine whether to boost the supply,” she says.

At Binny’s Beverage Depot's 25 area stores, the blizzard was a boon for business until Wednesday, when the snow crippled travel and shut down commerce.

“We undoubtedly gave a lot of that back, being closed (Wednesday), but the pick-up on Sunday and Monday was significant and surprising,” says chain owner Michael Binstein, CEO of Skokie-based Gold Standard Enterprises Inc.

To help recoup sales, the stores sent out a promotional e-mail on Thursday to remind customers of the beer holiday. It’s promoting cases of Miller Lite and Coors Light for $11.99.