Nebraska Brewing Company - CLOSED

[Brad]

Nebraska Brewing Company has added a nice sized deck in front of the brewery.

[Coyote]

Omaha Cottage Bakers' Market
Oct. 15th, Sat at 12:00PM - 3:00PM
Nebraska Brewing Company Tap Room & Brewery
6950 South 108th Street



Experience a fun-filled event featuring a vendor line-up of cottage bakers selling amazingly delicious goods. Be sure to test your skills at our sweet-themed games and earn chances to win cool prizes.

Raise your hand if you enjoy captivating baked goods and desserts!
Now raise your hand if you like to support small businesses!
Finally, do you like to play games against your friends and show them who reigns supreme?

Whether any of those scenarios speak to you or not, mark your calendars for October 15th for the first ever Omaha Cottage Bakers' Market. Support some hard-working, super talented bakers and help Cake4Kids raise funds to keep delivering smiles one birthday cake at a time to Omaha area youth.

[nebugeater]

Nebraska Brewing Company announces on their Facbook page that they are restructuring with Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. This was posted about an hour ago.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18W3QRzVjQ/

In nearly 18 years, we have never had to make such a difficult statement, but our main goal here is to provide clarity for all of our friends, and frankly, the family that we have been lucky enough to develop over the years.
Today, we have filed for a strategic restructuring with Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and you deserve to know this from us. That sounds scary, but it doesn’t have to be. We have chosen this route because we believe that there absolutely is a path to success and a way for us to continue making your favorite beers and serving our community. Times are uncertain with economic and supply chain issues, but we don’t plan on going anywhere. To do that, we need your help.
This restructuring effort allows us to continue operations including normal taproom hours and regular distribution. Our amazing bar staff will be behind the bar every day to serve up 16 oz. smiles and as always, we would love to share a pint with you. You will still be able to find your favorite Nebraska Brewing Company beers in your favorite grocery stores and bars - that is not going to change. We would love to see your faces in these difficult times as we deal with this new and less-than-fun chapter.
No one has ever said the beer industry would be easy but there is not a single second of this we haven’t loved. Every pint poured and every memory shared has helped write our story. The pint is your pen and we ask you to proudly continue to write our story with us. This is not a final chapter, just a new one.

[Brad]

That's too bad. They have had some great beers over the years, MOAB, Black Betty, Fathead, Etc, but that's not what you find in the stores. Seems like the stores end up with Cardinal Pale Ale, EOS Hef, IPA and Nebraska Pils. Sometimes you will see the nut brown, smores, and in the fall you see the wick for brains. The Pale Ale and the IPA are more of a west coast or bitter IPA and I prefer the hazy new England IPA. I am ok for a Hef every once in a while but not something I buy on the regular, and the Smores and Wick for Brains I would never buy. All that to say they have 2 beers at the stores I may occasionally buy. For a whole you could get Black Betty and MOAB at the stores, but its been quite a while since I have seen that. For a while you could occasionally find MOAB on tap at the Casual Pint, but that's been a while too. I also feel like they are one of bigger breweries that leaned hard in to their core beers when the market shifted towards smaller batches of constantly rotating beers.

I hope they can get it worked out and keep brewing for years to come.

[nebugeater]

That's too bad. They have had some great beers over the years, MOAB, Black Betty, Fathead, Etc, but that's not what you find in the stores. Seems like the stores end up with Cardinal Pale Ale, EOS Hef, IPA and Nebraska Pils. Sometimes you will see the nut brown, smores, and in the fall you see the wick for brains. The Pale Ale and the IPA are more of a west coast or bitter IPA and I prefer the hazy new England IPA. I am ok for a Hef every once in a while but not something I buy on the regular, and the Smores and Wick for Brains I would never buy. All that to say they have 2 beers at the stores I may occasionally buy. For a whole you could get Black Betty and MOAB at the stores, but its been quite a while since I have seen that. For a while you could occasionally find MOAB on tap at the Casual Pint, but that's been a while too. I also feel like they are one of bigger breweries that leaned hard in to their core beers when the market shifted towards smaller batches of constantly rotating beers.

I hope they can get it worked out and keep brewing for years to come.

I, too, hope they are getting in front of this before it is too late. I would suspect that they will get a positive bump in sales for a while with this announcement. It will not last based on this, though, so they will need to reinvent themselves a bit, too. Wonder if they should narrow their offerings?

[Stan]

I've never had any problem with Nebraska Brewing and would put them above Lucky Bucket in terms of which I'd prefer to drink. Both of them were primary contributors to pushing Omaha into the new age of breweries and none of the better and more popular Omaha breweries could have run had they not walked first.

[Ben]

That's too bad. They have had some great beers over the years, MOAB, Black Betty, Fathead, Etc, but that's not what you find in the stores. Seems like the stores end up with Cardinal Pale Ale, EOS Hef, IPA and Nebraska Pils. Sometimes you will see the nut brown, smores, and in the fall you see the wick for brains. The Pale Ale and the IPA are more of a west coast or bitter IPA and I prefer the hazy new England IPA. I am ok for a Hef every once in a while but not something I buy on the regular, and the Smores and Wick for Brains I would never buy. All that to say they have 2 beers at the stores I may occasionally buy. For a whole you could get Black Betty and MOAB at the stores, but its been quite a while since I have seen that. For a while you could occasionally find MOAB on tap at the Casual Pint, but that's been a while too. I also feel like they are one of bigger breweries that leaned hard in to their core beers when the market shifted towards smaller batches of constantly rotating beers.

I hope they can get it worked out and keep brewing for years to come.

I, too, hope they are getting in front of this before it is too late. I would suspect that they will get a positive bump in sales for a while with this announcement. It will not last based on this, though, so they will need to reinvent themselves a bit, too. Wonder if they should narrow their offerings?

I don't know if this is still the case, but NBC had a very different strategy from most in its early days. Rather than trying to be the "king of the local market", they pursued widespread distribution, even international, if I remember correctly.... I think its the only Nebraska brewery to have beers available nationwide (or at least the majority of the US). I wonder if this strategy has backfired on them, as it may have put cost pressure on their core beers, rather than the crazy price points some of us beer aficionados pay for the rotating small batch runs of beers at other local breweries.

[Brad]

they pursued widespread distribution, even international, if I remember correctly....

Correct, one time I took my brother in law there and we did the brewery tour, they said at that time they were in 3 different countries in Europe.

[nebugeater]

they pursued widespread distribution, even international, if I remember correctly....

Correct, one time I took my brother in law there and we did the brewery tour, they said at that time they were in 3 different countries in Europe.

Interesting. I was not aware of that. I would guess that added some stress and costs (risk) that may not have paid off.

[Omaha Cowboy]

I know I’ve seen MOAB in Wall to Wall and Wine Beer and Spirits occasionally.. But like Brad stated, it’s usually their West Coast IPA, their Hef and their Pale Ale in most grocery stores, and their Pumpkin Ale in late Summer/Fall..

I plan on visiting their tap room for some pours as much as I’m able over the next several months…

Ciao..LiO…Peace

[almighty_tuna]

As other have mentioned in this thread, I never understood why they didn't release more of their beers in stores. IIRC they had some great single hop brews, Citra specifically, and could have done a whole series of single hop releases as a marketing thing. Idk, I'm not in brewery marketing. It feels like they let the handful of boring standards head to the stores and held the more unique ones way too close to the vest to the point you wouldn't even know they existed unless you drove to the brewery. Hopefully they pull through this.

[Brad]

Interesting. I was not aware of that. I would guess that added some stress and costs (risk) that may not have paid off.

I think they were doing great and then the market shifted. It caught several breweries off guard or at least unable to keep up. That's why big breweries like Stone, New Belgium, and others sold out to large international companies.

I know some breweries like Lagunitas brewing (Now owned by Heinekin) are brewing their own beer, but also now using the extra capacity in their breweries to brew other Heinekin owned beers. Nebraska Brewing said a few years ago they were going to do contract brewing for other breweries, but never heard if that panned out.

[ChadJK]

There's definitely been a "readjustment" in the craft beer market. The boom is over and there's probably too many craft breweries out there now. They're not all going to make it. Many of them struggle to get distributed and rely heavily on their taprooms to keep them afloat.

[Brad]

Nebraska Brewing Company is closing

18 years is a long time. We’ve made friends, family, and most importantly a community of craft beer drinkers come together for nearly two decades at Nebraska Brewing Company, but all good things, eventually, come to an end.
It is with an incredibly heavy heart that we announce the upcoming closure of Nebraska Brewing Company. We have felt the support of our community especially strong over the last several months and hope to see you in the coming weeks as we inch closer to developing a final timeline. We do not have a final day of business determined at this time - but will continue to provide updates as we are able.
It has been our pleasure to serve our community for as long as we have. We have been incredibly lucky to have met all of you and to be able to help create, support, and expand the craft beer industry and charitable causes, not only around Omaha, but the state of Nebraska.
Whether you’re from the Omaha area or another state, if you’ve known us all 18 years or only recently become a fan - thank you for coming along with us on this journey. We hope to see you in the taproom soon to share memories and some more pints together.
And to all of our employees - the ones with us to the end, and everyone who worked with us or volunteered for events, from day one until now - none of this could have been possible without you.
- Paul and Kim Kavulak, on behalf of the entire Nebraska Brewing Company team

[almighty_tuna]

I think we all kinda knew this was coming. Unfortunate though, they had some good beers.

[Brad]

I think we all kinda knew this was coming. Unfortunate though, they had some good beers.

The thought was in my mind, but I was hoping they could pivot and make it work...

[nebport5]

That’s sad and unfortunate.

As Brad indicated above some of the beers they offered year round weren’t what retail consumers were looking for all the time. While it’s nice to see a brewery buck the trends and remain more pure, there’s a big economic reason so many breweries end up copying each other. Most breweries do not offer a hefe more than seasonally or a nut brown at all. I always thought that was odd choice. I imagine Cardinal Pale had to do too much of the heavy lifting. And in the last 10+ years pale ales have generally decreased in popularity which I attribute to the rise of the lower IBU hazy/New England style.

If they were considering canning for other breweries why didn’t they at least offer more rotating IPAs like they probably had in the taproom? And yet they caved to the seltzer trend. With all this in mind I'm guessing a post-covid recovery(or lack there of) was more of an obstacle for them vs. other breweries. Of course, who knows if there are other factors like personal or family considerations too. I wonder if they considered selling or if that was even a financially viable option.

[BuildTaller]

I think we all kinda knew this was coming. Unfortunate though, they had some good beers.

Yeah, the same ones for the past 18 years.

[riceweb]

The era of the microbrewery has ended

[Brad]

The era of the microbrewery has ended

But the era of the Nano brewery is just beginning!

[ChadJK]

I think we all kinda knew this was coming. Unfortunate though, they had some good beers.

Yeah, the same ones for the past 18 years.

I think for the average beer drinker (not the craft beer zealots), they were probably only aware of one of Nebraska Brewing Company's beers and that was likely the Cardinal Pale Ale. Though, that seems true for a lot of local breweries. If a bar has one of their beers on tap you can usually guess which one it's going to be.

[almighty_tuna]

I did enjoy that they had several single hop brews on tap in their tap room. That's something I appreciated because you could get a flight and truly appreciate the different flavors the hops imparted. Citra, albeit a "designer" hop, was definitely my fave.

[omaha79]

I thought the Tacoveza was really good. I liked the Wick for Brains when I had it at Berry Farm this last weekend. But, beyond that, I didn't seek out a lot of their stuff. I was ok with Ale Storm at Storm Chasers games at times, but stopped buying it when Werner brought in other local beers.

They didn't do a ton of innovating in their core line. They initially couldn't decide if they needed to be a food place/taproom or just a brewery. I think they struggled as one of the early breweries on the scene in finding that idenity. Initially tried to copy Upstream and then went all in on package, but didn't have that great core beer that made packaged a necessity.

[nebugeater]

They posted an event on Facebook saying their last day of Retail is Sunday, Oct 19, from noon to 9 PM.

https://www.facebook.com/share/1Ek8MjaNJr/

[Omaha Cowboy]

They posted an event on Facebook saying their last day of Retail is Sunday, Oct 19, from noon to 9 PM.

https://www.facebook.com/share/1Ek8MjaNJr/

Thanks for sharing this…

Ciao..LiO…Peace