New Glarus keeps rank 16th among US craft brewers in 2018

USA | Wisconsin’s craft brewer New Glarus maintained its rank as the 16th largest craft brewer in the US last year, according to the Brewers Association’s ranking released on 12 March 2019. What makes New Glarus’ achievement stick out is that it decided to only sell its beer in its home state, pejoratively called a “flyover” country, as most Americans only view Wisconsin (population 5.7 million people) from the air and never visit it in person. What is more, its largest city, Milwaukee, has been home to Miller Brewing since the 19th century.

Despite the odds, New Glarus managed to go from strength to strength. In 2018, it produced around 300,000 hl beer. The deliberate restriction on distribution has not hampered the popularity of its beers. On the contrary, punters are known to travel to Wisconsin specifically to buy them, or to smuggle kegs across its borders.

Founded by wife-and-husband team Deb and Dan Carey, the brewery’s best-selling beer, Spotted Cow, is named after the Holstein cows that are iconic of the state’s dairy industry. Its label, drawn by Mrs Carey, sports a cow.

The Careys have shared responsibilities right from the start. The outspoken Mrs Carey runs the business and Mr Carey brews the beers. 

The village of New Glarus, 170 km to the west of Milwaukee, used to be an enclave of Swiss settlers, who named it after the Swiss village of Glarus. Also known for its annual Wilhelm Tell pageant on Labour Day (the Swiss hero who allegedly shot an arrow through the apple placed on his son’s head and eventually secured Swiss independence), it has been home to the New Glarus Brewing Company for 25 years.

Nowadays the brewery is the town’s major attraction. It employs about 125 people.

New Glarus makes five year-round beers. None has an ABV of over 5 percent. Then there are the seasonals. Over the years, the brewery has introduced some 200 beers.

As both Careys are in their late 50s, they eventually began to worry about succession. Therefore, in 2015, they created an ESOP, an employee stock ownership programme, that will ultimately transfer ownership of New Glarus to their employees so that the brewery will continue to be part of the community.