Russian River Brewing founder discusses return to Washington State
Legendary northern California brewery Russian River Brewing is returning to Washington state under a new wholesale agreement with the new Stoup Distro Company. Russian River Brewing, makers of Pliny the Elder, Blind Pig, and the ‘tion series of Belgian and sours, pulled out of Washington distribution in December 2012.
“We are finally in a good position production wise that we can support opening up a new market,” Natalie Cilurzo told The New School. “When we were in Washington we made about 20% of the beer we do now. We built a new production brewery and we are climbing out of COVID-19 so this seemed like a good time for us. We already have a lot of requests and relationships, and we buy our hops up there already.”
Natalie and Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River Brewing
Russian River Brewing was founded at Korbel Champagne Cellars in Guerneville, CA, in 1997. Vinnie Cilurzo was hired as their first head brewer, and for 6 years he focused mostly on Belgian-style beers, but also developed one of the first Double IPA’s with Pliny the Elder in 1999. By 2003 Korbel wanted to get out of the microbrew business, and decided to sell the brewery to Vinnie Cilurzo and his wife Natalie Cilurzo. They reopened Russian River Brewing as it’s own separate entity in Santa Rosa, California in 2004 and quickly made themselves famous in the beer world.
When Russian River Brewing pulled out of Washington distribution with their wholesale partner at the time Click Distributing, it was during their peak of popularity. In 2012 Russian River cited an inability to meet demand and desire to stay primarily in California as the reasons for pulling out of distribution in the evergreen state, though in a letter to accounts they wrote: “This is our only market where, due to state liquor laws, we have little or no control over the managing over our brand.”
In 2017 Click Distributing was purchased by Craig Stein Beverage (CSB), who then in turn partnered with the Odom Corporation to form Northwest Beverages, LLC. Click Distributing is no longer in business, and the past decade has given Russian River a chance to reevaluate and choose smaller more specialty distributors outside of their home state.
“Our business needs change just as the wholesale business needs change,” says Cilurzo. “They [Stoup Distro] werent around 10 years ago and they are a great fit for what we are looking for, they are not a huge house and we are not looking for mass distribution. Every market is different and has different needs, we choose wholesalers who are a good fit for our needs.”
Brandon Wiley is the manager of Bottleworks, Seattle’s oldest and arguably premiere beer store and thinks their patience and hands-on approach to distro is a positive for the brand and consumers: “For certain producers, having your product on every shelf possible does a disservice to their work,” says Wiley, speaking on contrasting strategies when big brands come into a new territory and flood the market with product. “Some establishments don't educate themselves on the products that grace their shelves, which is when you start seeing hop forward beers being warm stored or kept well past their prime. Russian River clearly knows their worth and I admire them greatly for it.”
In October 2018 Russian River opened an 85,000 square foot production brewery on 15 undeveloped acres in Windsor, California. This increased capacity has allowed them to distribute more draft and bottled beer to markets in which they currently sell as well as open up some new territories like their return to Washington state. Still, their availability in the state will be slim, with just 32 accounts (all in the Seattle area) receiving beer for their initial relaunch. Stoup Distributing only distributes as south as Tacoma, so don’t expect to find Russian River in southwest Washington any time soon as Natalie Cilurzo tells us there are no plans to sign with additional distributors at this time.
“We are maxed out for production and capacity so we don’t have the product to sign with any more distributors. We want to stay close to home and get our feet under us, and see how things play out in the next year production wise,” says Cilurzo, who also confirms that Washington will see the extremely hyped and limited Pliny the Younger Triple IPA this February. “I dont know where the kegs are going to go and we dont publish it, we leave that up to the accounts.”
The limited availability and careful allocations is a wise move says Brandon Wiley: “I've seen many out of state breweries come into the market welcomed by great fanfare the first round and then sales fall drastically off by the second. And I don't need to state the obvious about the difficulties that legacy breweries are going through these days.
That being said, I've never seen a legacy brewery constantly make best of lists or had as many inquiries for a brewery like I have Russian River. They have clearly managed to stay relevant while some of their peers have resorted to marketing gimmicks, been sold off, or shut down. Kudos to Russian River!”
The official Washington relaunch party for Russian River Brewing is Thursday, January 19th starting at 4pm at Brouwer’s Cafe in Seattle, Natalie Cilurzo is flying in for the event and will be in attendance at 6pm.
On draft at Brouwer’s: Pliny the Elder IIPA, Blind Pig IPA, Happy Hops, STS Kellerpils, Velvet Glow Helles, Damnation Golden Strong, Supplication Sour Ale, Intinction Sauve Blanc sour, and another secret beer.