After a tumultuous few years Portland, OR’s Culmination Brewing are reinvested in expanding the brand after regaining their wholesale distribution rights and partnering with Running Man Distributing.

“Culmination was founded with an emphasis on bringing together people, ideas, community and family. It feels good to be with a small local distributor who also reflects these values,” says Culmination Brewing founder Tomas Sluiter.

New School and Oregon Beer Awards Best New Brewery of 2015, Culmination Brewing established themselves early on for a cutting edge portfolio of ales and lagers that covered a broad range of styles. From flagships like Phaedrus IPA to kettle sours like Sour Flower, and barrel-aged beasts like Multnomah County Stout and foeder fermented fruit beers like the Pinot-inspired Mythos Kriek. In January 2020, Culmination Brewing was named best mid-sized brewery in Oregon by the Oregon Beer Awards, the future was bright.

Culmination’s early partnership with the quickly growing General Distributors Inc. (GDI) was also an early success, until things got thrown for a loop when GDI sold to Columbia Distributing and Culmination was suddenly a free agent. At the time, signing on with Columbia Distributing made sense and at the outset seemed to do well.

But in 2020 consolidation of major distribution business abandoning the craft beer sector coupled with the pandemic put a serious dent in Culmination Brewing’s distribution sales. The erosion of points of contact in wholesale reps, infrequent delivery dates, and order minimums are rough on the small bottle shop and taproom that rotates their selection and don’t have a lot of cooler space to store backup kegs. The effect was the draft beer business almost completely disintegrated. For a brewery that relies on those direct small biz relationships and not chain outlets and grocery stores this break down can be catastrophic.

By partnering with 8 year old small Portland distributor Running Man, Culmination will get back to a hands on approach with far more personal relationship between distributor and purchaser, and brewery and wholesaler. Running Man keeps their portfolio down to 10-20 brands for this very purpose, to give each of their stories equal time to be told.

Running Man Distributing general manager Adam Metzger tells us “This partnership came to fruition in large part because of Running Man's main objective, Customer Service. We focus on the relationship between our customers and ourselves first and foremost. We don't limit delivery days and we don't have minimum orders.”

Getting out of their previous distribution agreement wasn’t easy, but with the help of Running Man they were able to extricate themselves from the arrangement and free up room to breath and release more small batch beers and mainstays outside of the Culmination taproom.

“This means we can use the unique brewdecks design again to its full potential,” says Sluiter. “We built our hot side and tank farm to have a full spectrum of scale. We plan to offer a new small limited fresh batch every week, in draft that Running Man will have available.”

In early 2021 Culmination Brewing successfully raised $400K from a small investor program through SBX to purchase their own canning line. When you are a 5bbl operation as Culmination is the margins of profit on cans are razor slim, and using mobile canning operations eat into that profit. Over the past 2 years Culmination Brewing’s canning operation and the taproom business was a lifeline. With Running Man the draft beer business is coming back quickly, the first orders picked up last week were sold out in days and the brewery is set to start cranking out innovative and classic new beers as the weather warms up.

Culmination Brewing’s flagship Phaedrus IPA, Pilsner, Sour Flower, and Obscured by Clouds hazy IPA series are now available with a quick turnaround from Running Man Distributing. In addition to the mainstays they are launching a rotating small batch series for draft-only specifically designed for Running Man and their clients. “A representative will always be available, there will be no minimum order amounts and delivery will be the same week,” says Sluiter.

Running Man’s Adam Metzger adds, “We think Culmination has a unique story to tell and is making excellent beer that deserves more opportunity to shine. We are very excited to partner with Tomas and his team, bringing their high-end flagships and one-offs to the Portland market. Our entire sales staff has even been to the taproom to meet Culmination's brew team already. We can't wait to start putting events together and bringing their quality products to our customers.”

More info on Culmination Brewing and Running Man Distributing.