Royal Docks Brewing Co. shifts distributors, increases presence in Ohio

CANTON, Ohio – Superior Beverage Group has acquired distribution rights to Royal Docks Brewing Co. beers.

The move will put the Canton-based brewery’s beers in 58 of Ohio’s 88 counties. Royal Docks has brewery locations in Canton and Massillon, but its bread-and-butter distribution footprint is Cuyahoga, Summit and Stark counties. Royal Docks does not sell its beers outside of Ohio.

Distributorship changes within breweries are fairly uncommon. A contractual agreement between the two is a lifetime deal.

Royal Docks says distribution of its portfolio of beer brands in the state shifted from a network of distributorships assigned by Beverage Distributors Inc., which acquired brand rights from Heidelberg Distributors last year. The recent dissolution of Columbus-based 17th Star Distributing, which was owned by Beverage Distributors, gave the brewery the opportunity to consolidate partnerships throughout Royal Docks’ distribution footprint.

Royal Docks’ co-founder and brewmaster Dave Sutula is optimistic the brewery’s footprint will grow considerably within Superior’s network.

“It was a long time coming,” he said about the deal with Superior. “The stars just never aligned.”

He said the folks at Superior told Royal Docks: “How are we going to focus on your core brands?”

“It’s up to you to be the steward of your brands,” Sutula said. “That attitude plus an attitude of a company willing to invest, I think that can be successful.”

Related coverage: Royal Docks Brewing Co.: Friday Night Sips (video)

I am on cleveland.com’s life and culture team and cover food, beer, wine and sports-related topics. If you want to see my stories, here’s a directory on cleveland.com. Bill Wills of WTAM-1100 and I talk food and drink usually at 8:20 a.m. Thursday morning. Twitter: @mbona30.

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