Brewery, Winery and Distillery Feasibility Study in Maine

A class Maine leans on heavily

Beverage manufacturing is far more prominent in Maine than across the nation. The location quotient is 2.53x, so breweries, wineries and distilleries carry a far heavier weight in state approvals than nationally, and they rank 8 of 39 within Maine while the state sits 23 of 53. The FY2017 to FY2026 record holds 55 loans and $16.7 million. The median loan of $175,200 is only 0.60x the nationwide median, and the central half spans $50,000 to $316,500. Maine producers tend to be small craft operations that borrow in modest amounts, often for equipment, and they cluster along the southern coast.

Lenders, programs and geography

SBA 7(a) accounts for 45 of the loans and SBA 504 for 10, and no loan is franchised. Bangor Savings Bank holds 21 loans, a large share, though its $3.8 million total points to small notes. Northeast Bank holds 5 loans worth $904,800 and Maine Community Bank holds 5 worth $400,000. Cumberland County has 31 loans, far ahead of York with 7 and Androscoggin and Lincoln with 3 each. The Portland area clearly leads, though Maine's coastal and Downeast counties appear further down. Approvals by year need to be read against the cancellation floor of 5.8%, which equals the bound that counts undisbursed loans.

Losses are visible here

Unlike most cells in this group, this one has enough disbursed loans to publish a loss rate. Of the 38 loans that funded between FY2017 and FY2021, 2.6% show a loss to date, and the same 2.6% had lost within five years of approval. These are floors, since open loans can still fail, but they show that craft producers do sometimes default, usually when sales to distributors disappoint or when equipment is idle. Lenders should treat them as a reminder that a small cohort moves with one loan.

Scope and what the study must test

Industry coding records only that the borrower brews, ferments or distills. Hospitality uses such as a taproom or tasting room are not visible in these loans, and this class also takes in wineries under the site's own scope definition. A Maine study should therefore test production economics and the hospitality side separately: barrel or batch capacity, distribution contracts, tourist seasonality, and licensing for on-site sales. Debt service coverage must hold through the slow winter. Equipment is specialised, so appraisal value in a sale is lower than cost. Loan Analytics publishes this record for lenders and borrowers weighing a proposal.