SATURATION OF SUDS; DOMESTIC CRAFT BEER LINES BREW SWIFTLY GROWING MARKET CRAFT BEER GLUT BAD FOR BREWERS : TOP BREWERS.

Byline: Richard Lorant Associated Press 

After spending $1 million to launch a new bottling line, Atlantic Coast Brewing Ltd. can now boast that its Tremont Ale is the only beer brewed and bottled in Boston.

But Tremont Ale has plenty of company where it counts: in the stores.

Shelves that once were the domain of Budweiser, Miller and a few familiar imports are stocked with enough American ``craft beers'' to make consumers woozy before their first swallow.

You want a Samuel Adams? Fine. There are nine different kinds, not counting seasonal brews. Harpoon keeps it down to four year-rounds and four seasonals.

How about a local brew with a catchy name? Nantucket has its Whale's Tale Pale Ale; Steel Rail Extra Pale Ale is the brew of choice in South Deerfield. There's Mill City up north, Paper City out west, Ipswich, Essex and Middlesex in between. Wachusett! Gesundheit.

And that's all without leaving Massachusetts.

``We used to carry everything that was available. Now I have some people saying we have too much of a selection,'' said Brian Weber, a beer manager for Marty's Liquors.

More than 400 varieties of microbrews from around the country are on display at Marty's. A cooler that fit every last brand 18 months ago couldn't fit half today.

And while Marty's has shelf space galore, there are dozens of small stores with just enough room for a few exotic brews.

The combination - a dizzying array of brands, limited space and a steady influx of new producers - means a tough sell for newcomers like Atlantic Coast, which began bottling Tremont Ale last month.

``There's too many brands,'' admitted Chris Lohring, the brewery's co-founder. ``The retailer is a little less accepting of new brands because there are so many of them.''

Of the 383 microbreweries in the United States as of March, one in eight can be expected to fail, according to the industry-owned Institute for Brewing Studies in Boulder, Colo.

Analysts and brewers say a lot more craft brewers will fall by the wayside in the next couple of years as the public wearies of its choices.

``No longer is a beer with a cute label, a cute name and an amber color enough to keep a consumer coming back. The craft beer segment has grown from a quirky upstart segment to something more sophisticated,'' said Nicholas Godfrey, head of marketing and sales at Mass Bay Brewing.

Yet the specialty beer market is expanding fast: 51 percent growth from 1994 to 1995 and an estimated 35 percent last year.

Yet with 5 million barrels of beer sold last year, specialty brewers - including regional brewers, microbrewers and brew pubs - captured only 2.5 percent of the overall U.S. beer market.

Boston Beer is far and away the leader among specialty brewers, brewing 1.2 million barrels of Samuel Adams a year, or more than one in five of every craft brew sold. Its nearest competitor, Pete's Wicked Ale, is one-third as big.

``There's still growth in the specialty market, and they're still growing faster than any other segment,'' said Eric Shepard, executive editor of Beer Marketer's Insights, a trade publication based in Nanuet, N.Y.

It's that potential for growth that entices people to get into the brewing business despite the odds.

Take western Massachusetts. Right now you've got Berkshire Brewing Co. Inc. in South Deerfield, Paper City Brewing Co. in Holyoke and Arrowhead Brewing Co. in Pittsfield. Then there are brew pubs in Northampton, Great Barrington, Amherst and Greenfield.

But the area is far from beer-saturated, according to Berkshire Brewing co-owner Gary Bogoff. He says there are rumors of two or three more on the way.

``It's getting more crowded out there, that's for sure,'' Bogoff said. ``But here we are doing 77 barrels a week, and we feel we haven't even scraped the surface.''

Like many small brewers, Berkshire is content to continue selling kegs and oversized bottles - much simpler and much cheaper than packing cases and six packs with 12-ounce bottles.

It is also easier to find bottling equipment for a smaller brewery than it was just a few years ago.

``There was no category at all,'' said Jim Koch, the company's president. ``We had to convince people that they had to carry an American beer that cost as much as Heineken - that `great American beer' was not an oxymoron.''

The Top 10 craft brewers in the country and their 1996 shipments, according to figures compiled by Beer Marketer's Insights and the Institute for Brewing Studies. A barrel is 31 gallons.

Boston Beer Co., 1.2 million barrels.

Pete's, 420,000 barrels.

Sierra Nevada, 270,000 barrels.

Red Hook (Anheuser-Busch), 225,000 barrels.

Pyramid, 128,000 barrels.

Widmer, 122,000 barrels.

Anchor, 108,000 barrels.

Full Sail, 80,000 barrels.

Portland, 70,000 barrels.

Spanish Peaks, 60,000 barrels.

CAPTION(S):

Photo, Box

Photo: (color) Atlantic Coast Brewers co-founder Chris Lohring, right, talks with investor Charlie O'Brien at a bottling line in Boston.

Associated Press

Box: TOP BREWERS (see text)