Community Brewing Ventures is a brewery accelerator. “We created CBV to discover, produce, and promote the most innovative craft brands in the beverage industry,” the company notes as its business mission, which means taking up-and-coming craft brewing operations and helping them amplify ideas and brands to reach a wider audience, scaling recipes, production and distribution while handling all the logistics with the help of CBV’s partner network. That all sounds cool, but who exactly are the people behind these investors and consultants and what cred do they carry in the beer community?
CBV grew out of D9 Brewing Co., one of the Southeast’s fastest-growing and most interesting beer ventures. The garage-born beer business opened its first production location in 2014. Since, D9 has become one of greater Charlotte’s biggest breweries with three locations (Lake Norman, Uptown Charlotte and Hendersonville), one production brewery and a distribution center. In 2020, the owners of D9 Brewing and a team of investors and craft beer experts launched CBV, announcing at the end of January 2021 that they had raised $2.5 million through a seed-round to support operations.
Now it’s been announced that Bay Cannon Beer Co.’s taproom in West Tampa will become a joint operation with CBV. The two-year old brewery joined CBV’s network earlier this year, and the press release notes that Bay Cannon “will be deepening the partnership to include on-site operations as well.” With Bay Cannon, the CBV family of brands grows and now includes D9 Brewing, Unknown Brewing, Steam Theory and Bold Mariner. Why is Bay Cannon going this route? From the press release:
“Frankly, due to COVID, we were forced to make quick pivots, without the infrastructure or financial footing that we needed. So, coming off of our first year of business, we began looking for a partner to add value both from a financial stability standpoint and from a brand growth perspective,” explained Matthew Juaire, owner of Bay Cannon. “Our partnership with CBV launched smoothly enough that looking into further integration made sense for us and for them. I think in the end, out of all of the people and places that we spoke with, we saw a clear synergy between Bay Cannon and CBV that was worth digging more into.”
“Running a brewery requires you to wear so many different hats, many of which have nothing to do with actually making beer or sharing it with your customers,” said Aaron MJ Gore, Director of Strategic Partnerships with CBV. “For us, this was just the natural extension of an already fantastic partnership. We focus on what we’re good at, while everyone at Bay Cannon can focus on doing what they love, and creating even more incredible beer.”
If you like Bay Cannon, this is good news for Florida beer drinkers. Even more Bay Cannon favorites will be hitting shelves throughout the state, including its flagship Xander Hazy IPA, Maxwell American Stout, Emilia Dry-Hopped Blonde Ale and Elias Double IPA. New and small-batch releases will also see expanded distribution throughout Bay Cannon’s distribution footprint. The taproom itself will also see enhancements, including packaged offerings from CBV’s entire portfolio of brands. For more info on Community Brewing Ventures, surf over here.
Bay Cannon Beer Co. says
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