The Virginia Beer Company Makes Export Inroads

The Virginia Beer Company, York County

Building a community around the love of good beer has been a central part of the philosophy behind The Virginia Beer Company, LLC (VBC) since it opened in York County near Williamsburg in 2016. “We always envisioned our taproom as a community gathering place,” said Chris Smith, VBC co-founder and managing member. That focus on creating an inviting space where people could gather has guided the company’s direction over four years as a key part of VBC’s motto, “Beer, People, Purpose.”

Since its founding, however, Smith and co-founder Robby Willey have had another purpose: to secure a percentage of VBC sales through exports.

In a competitive local market, VBC looked to the export market as a way to differentiate itself from its peers. That goal was made easier by the overseas market’s demonstrated thirst for U.S.-brewed craft beer.

“U.S. craft beer has advantages in export markets due to the fact that craft breweries in this country were the first movers that set the stage for the entire global craft beer movement,” Smith explained. “U.S. craft breweries still drive the trends and tend to hold a lot of mystique for foreign consumers. Many of the export markets have rising craft beer scenes, but none of them have managed to equal the success and overall quality of the U.S. craft beer scene.”

While some craft beer drinkers express a fierce loyalty for their local brews, others fall into what Texas Tech University researchers called, in a 2018 paper “Craft Beer Consumers’ Lifestyles and Perceptions of Locality,” an “Adventurers” lifestyle. These novelty-seekers constitute the largest group of craft beer consumers and drive global sales for a product that carries a cultural component characterized by a shared exploration of taste.

It’s this customer to whom VBC appeals in Virginia and abroad, with flavors like Liquid Escape, infused with lemongrass and sea salt and billed as the “perfect companion” for a great escape. The company aims to position its products as a go-to choice for taste lovers and adventure seekers.

The Virginia Beer Company, York County

Overseas Adventurers, it turns out, present both an opportunity and a challenge. To satisfy these drinkers, exporters first have to get new tastes to new markets. The next step is to become a part of the local craft beer culture by building a community in the beer producer’s target markets.

Redefining Quality

The VBC team was ready to dive headlong into the export business when they met the professionals with VEDP and the Virginia Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services (VDACS), who identified a hurdle VBC needed to overcome before moving into export. Smith and Willey discovered that while product quality was great when the beer was fresh, it wasn’t ready to withstand the rigors of international travel.

Armed with this logistical insight, VBC invested in additional lab equipment and made a commitment to prepare for export. Two years later, the team was ready to test this knowledge at the Craft Beer Rising festival in London, which they attended with support from VDACS and a Virginia State Trade Expansion Program (STEP) grant that funded their travel. The festival was a success, and a launching pad into the United Kingdom market.

“Getting a small bit of our beer to London for the event was our first test of the logistics of export and how our beer would taste two months later, after all the travel,” Smith said.

A Global Community

In recent years, VBC has hosted importers from the Netherlands, France, and South Korea, with support from VDACS in some cases, coming to tour its facility and develop relationships so critical for sales in the craft beer industry.

“There’s a lot of trust involved in export,” Smith said. “We receive contacts all the time from people we’ve never met or heard of, and it’s hard to say, ‘Sure, we’ll send you this beer we put our name on and trust that you’ll treat it correctly and that you’ll pay us.’ That face-to-face interaction is huge.”

With STEP grants to support its travel and marketing, VBC has traveled to a broader range of export markets and carried with it the U.S. craft beer culture that entices overseas enthusiasts. In November 2019, the company attended the American Craft Beer Experience festival in Tokyo and discovered just how far its Liquid Escape-loving community extended.

“They were so thankful that we had taken the time to come visit them,” Smith recalls. “Showing up in the market shows that you’re committed to the retailers and consumers.”

This work to prepare for export has paid off in unexpected ways. By the time the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States, closing restaurants and other gathering places and driving down local beer sales, some global markets were beginning to reopen. VBC’s diversification across a range of countries proved tremendously beneficial to the company. Whereas export sales would normally make up approximately 4% to 5% of the company’s overall sales, in 2020 that percentage will edge closer to 10% to 12%.

Friendly Competition

Competition may be growing in the expanding state beer market, but the players in this industry recognize that global recognition of quality Virginia craft beer is good for everyone. As a case in point, when VDACS planted the seed with U.K.-based beer subscription service Beer52 for a Virginia-themed beer box, four breweries gained a foothold in the tough-to-crack U.K. market. In early 2020, three 40-foot containers filled with VBC’s Saving Daylight, along with product from three other breweries, helped establish a U.K. presence for Virginia beers.

Today, VBC is working to enter the South Korea market, with some help from what, in other industries, might be considered a competitor. Hardywood Park Craft Brewery in Richmond sells its beer in South Korea. When they hosted one of their importer’s representatives at their brewery earlier this year, they brought him to Williamsburg to meet the VBC team.

“Businesses don’t really do that,” Smith said. “But in craft beer, that’s kind of the norm.”

Redefining Quality

A Global Community

Friendly Competition

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