Beer distributors may start seeing double

“The agreements we have with our breweries, we just can’t arbitrarily say, ’OK my gas is up 50 cents a gallon, I’m going to increase my price.’ So you have to eat that cost,” she said.

By consolidating, she can deliver more beer without incurring much higher expenses. “The more cases that you drop off at each stop, the more that goes directly to your bottom line,” she said.

Across the country in the heart of the Rockies is Western Beverage Distributing Co., which opened for business in 1933 when Guido Mapelli picked up Coors beer in a trailer in Golden, where the brewery was built, and sold it on the streets of downtown Denver.

At the time, there were about three dozen breweries in the Denver area. Most were larger than Coors, said V. Gaines, Mapelli’s grandson, who now is the company’s chief executive officer.

Coors decided to go into the distribution business in the 1970s, which ended its business relationship with Western Distributors. Today, Molson Coors owns three distributors out of the roughly 500 it has under contract. By volume, about 55 percent of those distributors deliver both Coors and Miller, Molson Coors spokeswoman Kabira Hatland said.

Western Beverage added products to fill the void, Gaines said. With 800 employees, Western Beverage distributes Miller, Samuel Adams and Pabst Blue Ribbon, among other products.

Gaines said MillerCoors likely will lead to more industry consolidation. He is awaiting more details about the venture’s operations but has no plans now to acquire another company.

“You could worry about the unknown all you want, but all you’re going to do is get a stomachache, I think,” he said. “(It’s) business as usual, and we look and hope the opportunities are great when it happens.”

“We’re just looking at trying to stay alive and stay in business,” he said.

Hatland said the companies cannot integrate operations until the deal is finalized, so she could not comment about the status of distributors.

However, all should benefit with more resources for marketing, research and development, representatives of both companies said.

Miller, which is based in Milwaukee, has 550 distributors but none of its own. About 60 percent by volume deliver brands for both companies, Miller spokesman Julian Green said.

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