Industry Snapshot with Lone Pine Brewing Co.

A chat with co-owner John Paul

Many breweries around the state and country have had to restructure staffing due to the pandemic affecting their normal operations. Lone Pine’s adjustments were to repurpose the roles of the tasting room staff and make calculated adjustments to their draft quantities. For tasting room service, they went to single-serve for customers and did not pour flights of beers to decrease sharing and increase safety.

At this point in 2020, Lone Pine has hired more people on staff this year as a whole. Among the new hires are a Director of Finance and HR. in April 2020, their tasting room deliveries were up 12% over 2019 due to the delivery business. However, sales volume dropped by 70%, but the average sale was up by 27% because people were buying more when going out to stock up on cans. On a whole, the business is up approximately 15% this year in gross sales.

For fall preparation at the Anderson Street location in Portland, they have expanded their outdoor section and deck space and added tower heaters to keep customers warm outside while socially distanced as well.

As for their winter outlook, they are hoping the best and embracing for the worst. In their six-month worst-case scenario outlook, they would go back to curbside pick up and delivery and adjust draft production accordingly.

As for other plans, Paul said, “We will keep innovating and putting out new beer varieties to accommodate a market that is driven by consumer willingness to explore new beers. While we’re a core-centric business, we want to give consumers something to look forward to as much as possible in these trying times.”

Check out more of our Industry Snapshots on the craft brew, distilling, and Maine outdoor industries as we #keepourspiritsupmaine


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