Why can some breweries have guest taps and others cannot? 

There are a handful of reasons why a brewery might opt to have a few guest taps (limited production of their own beer, special events, increase style variety, etc), and you might be surprised how frequently CSA is asked by a local brewery with a wholesale malt license about purchasing kegs or cans from our portfolio. 

Guest taps are incredibly common at brewpubs across Colorado, and we distribute beer to quite a few brewpubs that are excited to pour beers from the CSA portfolio. However, you will see far fewer guest taps at Colorado breweries that lack the brewpub license and operate only under a malt wholesale license. The main difference between the two being that malt wholesale locations don’t serve food.

BUT it is possible, and we want your help to streamline the process here in Colorado so we can find more homes for your fantastic beer and increase points of distribution statewide.

So what’s the catch?

In order to distribute to a brewery or establishment with a Malt Wholesale License, we need to establish a very specific sub distribution agreement between CSA, Supplier, and Wholesaler that allows them to act as a “sub distributor” and sell your draft or packaged beer in their taproom. This does not mean they will be authorized to distribute your beer outside of their taprooms. This does mean that they can sell draft or packaged beer for on premise consumption, and we can increase the exposure and enjoyment of your beers throughout the entire state.

Sounds cool, what’s next?

We will be reaching out to those of you that we do not yet have these agreements in place with and requesting an addendum to our current distribution agreement. This will allow us to service these malt wholesalers (brewery taprooms) that want to sell your beer! This will allow us to formulate a broader strategy to expand our sales and distribution to consumers directly aligned with our target demographic. We hope that you share the excitement that we have about this opportunity, and we’d love to hear your questions or feedback on the topic. Please feel free to reach out to your Brand Manager with any follow up, and look forward to growth wherever we can find it in 2022!

-Alan Stone, General Manager