Beer Radar

It looks like Legacy Brewing of Reading has dodged the bullet.

The brewery, which produces both the Legacy line of craft beers plus Reading Premium, had gone through some rocky months earlier this year had had actually ceased brewing for a few weeks. Founder/brewer Scott Baver left (he’s now at the Lion) and president Dave Gemmel was hunting for some new financial backing. It was so shaky, the brewery didn’t even bother to send beer or reps down to any events during Philly Beer Week.

Oddly, it was Legacy’s design firm – Ruckus Marketing of New York and Moorestown, N.J. – that stepped in and helped save the day.

According to the firm’s Josh Wood, Ruckus helped track down some “bridge financing” so that Legacy could re-start brewing. Wood declined to name the source of those funds or the amount. He said there were enough pre-orders to guarantee the brewery’s survival.

Wood also said:

• Legacy will begin contract-brewing many of its products at the Lion. Only its 22-ounce bottles are certain to be brewed in Reading; the majority of its other products will be produced in Wilkes-Barre.
• No more canned Reading Premium, just bottles and draft. Those popular cans were produced up at High Falls in New York; the Lion doesn’t have a canning line.
• In addition to Reading Premium, Legacy will focus on five brands: Hedonism, Midnight Wit, Hoptimus Prime, Euphoria and Fat Boy. (I guess that means Nor’easter oatmeal stout will bite the dust, unless it’s brewed as a seasonal.)
• Legacy will send two reps to Philly and 4 to N.Y.C.

“They hit a bump in the road,” Wood said. “But we’re definitely not going to be one of those sob stories.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 at 1:01 pm and is filed under Beer etc.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.