The beer industry has historically survived and thrived off of streamlines business models. Whether it’s big ideas like Augustus Busch’s refrigerated rail cars, or a national distribution system, or small ideas like having a flagship beer, and seasonals. Models like this are ingrained in the way beer is made, bought, and sold. But the last decade of brewing has seen more than just a proliferation of beer styles — we’ve seen an increasing diversity in business models as well. It’s rare to find a new brewery these days that doesn’t have a taproom, or self-distribution in some capacity. But what happens when you get caught between big shifts in the industry? When the business model you designed is suddenly stuck, like the end of a branch on an evolutionary tree, caught between a model that worked for the breweries that came before you, but seems almost irrelevant to the breweries who come right after you?