Some Louisville bars say certain beers are getting hard to find

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- When customers sit down at a bar and ask for a cold one, they may not be able to get their first pick of beer brands, according to some local bars.

"Never in my 39 years have I seen anything like what's going on right now," said Deborah Self, owner of Stooges Bar and Grill.

Self says her customer base is back, but not all of her products are. She says it's been tough getting certain brands of beer back in stock.

"Budweiser. They were completely out at the warehouse. I had 12 cases in the whole building and that's nothing here," she said.

Other businesses say they're seeing similar issues.

"It's hard. If I don't have the product, I can't sell it," said Steven Johnson, owner of Bookline Beer Depot.

"My sales rep comes in and says 'I'm sorry, we don't have this, we don't have that.' Week in, week out," Johnson said.

A statement from the Kentucky Beer Wholesales Association and its members says:

“The global pandemic has created unprecedented disruption to supply chains across numerous industries, and the beer market is obviously no exception. Kentucky’s beer distributors and wholesalers are working hard alongside our brewer and retail partners to ensure consumers have safe access to an extensive selection of quality products. Despite current challenges, the good news is that every day we are still delivering a wide variety of cold, refreshing beer for Kentuckians to responsibly enjoy this summer.”

Those with knowledge of the industry say impacts are more brand-by-brand and supply chain challenges can be anything from getting raw ingredients to shortages of aluminum or glass.

"We'll get a Coors truck in sometimes, we'll get a Miller truck in sometimes, but we don't know and our (sales) reps don't know," said Jordan Hincks, manager at Dundee Tavern.

Hincks says Miller Lite bottles have been difficult to get in stock at the bar, and she expects after this upcoming 4th of July weekend, she'll be out and have to switch to cans.

"And I am expecting to go out of Coors Lite because Coors Lite this week was the one product they didn't have any of," she said.

Dundee Tavern also serves several local products. Hincks says getting those local brews in hasn't been an issue.

Michael Moeller, co-founder of the Louisville Ale Trail, says the biggest challenge he sees Louisville breweries and taprooms facing right now is gauging customer count.

"What I'm hearing from a lot of taproom managers and brewers right now is they don't really know when consumers are coming in," he said. "This is particularly true with some of the newer breweries that opened up during COVID. There's just no data for them to reference of, alright July is going to be this busy so we need to brew this amount of beer."

The Louisville Ale Trail is a brewery passport system that encourages tourists and locals to visit area taprooms. Moeller says soon, the trail will include more than 20 taprooms.

As for the big name companies, bar owners say they'll keep waiting and hoping the trucks come in fully stocked.

"It's just whatever the distributor can get to me, he'll get it to me," said Self.