Remember when Switchback Brewing started bottling its beers back in 2012 and everyone went crazy?
Well, hold onto your seats, folks, because later this week the Burlington South End brewery will start shipping six-packs of its flagship ale and cool-weather seasonal, Dooley’s Belated Porter, to Vermont retailers, co-owner Bill Cherry tells Seven Days.
The brewery will also release occasional four-packs of high-alcohol brews and specialty beers, such as its newish line of sours and other small-batch project brews.
Rather than use the standard longneck bottles, the brewery will package in short-neck bottles similar to those used by Jamaican brewery Red Stripe. “The first thing that happens [when people see these bottles] is that they smile,” says Cherry, noting that Switchback is the first local brewery to avail itself of the stubby little containers.
Bottled offerings will rotate with the seasons, and Cherry says he’s working on acquiring hop contracts that would him enable to annex Switchback’s popular Connector IPA as a second year-round offering sometime in early 2016.
The new packaging caps off more than a year’s preparation, in which the company improved infrastructure, increased brewing capacity, staffed up, and empowered its brewers with developing new beers and projects. “We’ve kind of had quite a year over here,” says Cherry, noting that Switchback has been poised to produce three times its current output since April.
Still, Cherry wanted to make sure all the pieces were in place to handle the increased demand that he expects will come with the new format. “We don’t want to get caught with our pants down,” he says. “We’re really a little scared of what might happen, because [this] is the package people like.”
The original print version of this article was headlined “Switching It Up”
This article appears in Nov 18-24, 2015.
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Nice. Hopefully stores, like Healthy Living et al., don’t hoard it in the back and only release it at certain times to create a buzz and lines (a la Heady Topper).
I’m very excited that Switchback is launching these 12 oz bottles. But it would be great if there was just a bit of fact checking in the article. Magic Hat set up shop on Flynn ave back in the mid 90’s well before Switchback. They may have moved on, but Switchback is not the “original” south end brewery. Full Sail (craft brewery out of Oregon) has been bottling in short-neck bottles for years. It is even distributed in New Hampshire. Please, do some basic research before putting this stuff in print.
JC123, Thank you for your note — and for keeping me honest! You are of course right that Magic Hat opened in the South End, long before Switchback existed. However, Magic Hat has been a South Burlington institution for most of its 20-odd years in business, and Switchback is by far the longest-standing brewery in that area now.
As for Full Sail — whoops! I see their long-neck bottles everywhere, but never noticed the shorties and it’s always wise to check when someone says they’re the “first” to do anything.
Anyway, we appreciate the feedback and we’ve corrected the errors in the story online. Thank you!