Switching to Imports.
Sell micros? Nevermore, quoth the RavenEd Raven was one of the foot soldiers who fought the microbrewery revolution in New York City, as a street sales guy in Manhattan for the Brooklyn Brewery. Now he's jumping the micro ship to import Jever Pus, a four-star German pilsner beer.
Raven started in the beer industry just as micros were taking off in the New York market, back in the later 1980s. "I went out on a limb, getting into the beer industry," Ed recalls. "I had a nice cushy job as a spot television broker. Then I ran into a guy from Brooklyn Brewery, and I thought 'this is kind of cool,' and I asked if I could work for them. They couldn't offer me much money, but I was young and single, and I had no responsibilities, so I just did it. Away I went. Everybody thought I was out of my mind. But it got pretty exciting when the beer business started taking off."
Raven soon became a sales manager, working for Brooklyn's multi-brand beer distributorship, the Craft Brewers Guild. By 1995, Raven was national sales manager for the Craft Brewers Guild, with a territory from Maine to Massachusetts. In 1996 Raven became a vice president of the company, but began to think about striking out on his own. In 1997, he left Brooklyn Brewery, and started his own company, Raven Brands, representing beer brands in New York City and its environs.
"After I left Brooklyn, I continued to represent some of the brands, including Sierra Nevada," Raven recalls. "I was doing what I had been doing before, but I had more flexibility, because I was working for myself."
Unfortunately, in September of '99, Raven says Sierra Nevada decided to get rid of all its brokers. "Sierra Nevada had been a dream brand," Raven says, "A really terrific beer. But I starting to look around and there weren't too many other brands of that caliber to rep for."
That's when he took the brand search bit farther afield. "My parting with Sierra Nevada just made things happen a little faster than I had planned," Raven says. "I'd already been thinking about imports. My importing license was in the works, and I'd had some preliminary discussions with Bmu and Brunnen about representing Jever Pils in the U.S."
Raven's talks with Brau und Brunnen bore fruit, and he launched the Raven Import Co. early this year, to import Jever, and several other brands, including a line of canned, flavored Berliner Weisse beers from Schultheiss.
Jever will be the Raven Imports flagship. It is a classic German pilsner, very happy, and rated a four-star "world classic" by noted English beer writer Michael Jackson. The first container load is enroute from Germany, and should arrive in the US in a matter of a couple of weeks. For Raven, Jever is the perfect brand at the perfect time.
"Jever is in a class of its own," he says. "There is no imported pilsner with this kind of flavor profile. Pilsner Urquell is not really a typical pils. It's darker, and fuller. Jever is very dry, with a high hop profile."
To get his shot with Jever, Raven had to convince the export manager for Brau and Brunnen, who believed that Americans wouldn't drink a pilsner beer with 44 International Bitterness Units. "The export manager said Americans are not familiar with beers that are bitter, and wouldn't drink Jever," Raven says. "Once I got him to New York, I took him to DBA, and he sat down at the bar. We started with a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. He said, 'that's pretty bitter.' And then we went down the line--Victory Ale, Fuller's, a whole bunch of micros. I convinced him that bitter beers can sell in the U.S."
High IBU beers do abound these days, but Raven observes that most of them are ales. In addition, he points out the dearth of micro lagers and pilsners. "What other pilsners are out there?" he says. "American micros don't do pilsners. One reason, was they don't want to compete with Bud, Miller, or even Heineken. They want to make a beer that is richer and fuller. Fundamentally, it's not really economical for most micros to do lagers and pilsners. They don't have the tankage, and they need faster turnaround. No one has done it domestically, except for Sam Adams."
Raven believes that he can find a niche since some of the turbulence has subsided in the market. "The clutter on the micro side has subsided since three years ago," he says. "There are only four really solid national micros. Sierra Nevada, Sam's, Pete's, and Redhook. And there is now a lot of consumer interest in the imports."
For Jever, Raven plans an on-premise push with the bottled beer in Manhattan, as soon as his first container hits the U.S. "I still believe that establishing a brand on-premise goes a long way to establishing interest," Raven says.
He's now an old-hand at selling beer on premise in New York City, in an environment often considered one of the toughest beer markets in the country. "New York City is a really competitive beer market," he says, "The trick is to be able to sustain sales, and keep attention on your product. We have the most fickle consumers on the planet. You can be the hottest thing around one day, and gone the next. I think we can make Jever a hot brand, and then it's just a question of sustaining it."
"I feel like I'm starting all over again," he adds, "but it's kind of exciting."
Ed Raven, formerly of the Brooklyn Brewery, has started his own import firm, called Raven Imports. The company's primary import will be Jever Pits, produced by the Brau und Brunnen brewing group of Germany.
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| Author: | Reid, Peter V.K. |
|---|---|
| Publication: | Modern Brewery Age |
| Article Type: | Brief Article |
| Geographic Code: | 1USA |
| Date: | May 8, 2000 |
| Words: | 975 |
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