2014 Recap February 04 2015, 0 Comments

So we are about a month late talking about 2014.  First we want to thank all of you who support us day in and day out for making 2014 such a great year for us.  We grew over 40% in 2014, and being that we don't advertise in traditional channels, that's all thanks to word of mouth from you guys.  I honestly thank you for letting me do what I love every single day.  2014 was a crazy year, with a huge rise in the quantity and quality of beers available to us from local breweries.  Seems hard to believe but 2014 was the first time we saw breweries like Bissell Brothers, Austin Street, Foundation, Funky Bow, Banded Horn, SoMe and others in package form.  

Now comes the fun part, our top sellers of 2014.  Here they are, and these are all in dollar value, to even out six packs versus bombers and such:

1. Bissell Brothers The Substance

2. Rising Tide Maine Island Trail Ale

3. Lagunitas Sucks

4. Marshall Wharf Cant Dog

5. Maine Beer Company Lunch

6. Founders All Day IPA

7. Lagunitas Little Sumpin Sumpin

8. Stone Enjoy By IPA

9. Rising Tide Calcutta Cutter

10. Bissell Brothers Bucolia

I am incredibly happy/proud to see 6 out of 10 on this list come from my home state of Maine.  Everyone that works at Bier Cellar was born and raised in this state, so while the quality of the beer is always our foremost concern, it makes us happy to get to deliver world class beer to people that is from these 16 counties.   

The other thing that pops out to me is that every single beer on this list falls under the IPA umbrella, or at least the hoppy beer umbrella.  That's not a shock as that style is by far the most popular in beer right now, but it would make me very happy to see some of my personal favorite styles like Gose, Berliner Weiss and Saison sneak in that top 10.  Allagash Saison almost snuck in, maybe they can make a run in 2015.

So here is to 2015, I'm sure it will be an exciting year for breweries from Maine, and we will see some world class beer come in from outside the state.  One thing you can be sure of is we will continue to be the first line of defense, doing the incredibly difficult job of tasting all of these beers to decide what makes it on the Bier Cellar shelves.

Happy New Year.