Sierra Nevada has identified craft beer’s biggest villain and thinks it has a plan to defeat it. In a James Bond-themed presentation during its wholesaler conference at its campus in Mills River, North Carolina, the country’s No. 2 craft brewer by volume armed its wholesalers with a “license to sell” and a specific mission to tackle what it’s calling the Vortex – the self-perpetuating cycle of beer volume declines at retail that lead to distribution declines, which create more volume losses.
