Whole Foods taps into craft beer market

Whole Foods, which is known for luxurious produce departments and an exhaustive assortment of natural foods, is adding "brewery" to its list of offerings.

The grocery chain has been opening brewpubs at select stores throughout the U.S. The beers have been so popular with shoppers that the retailer plans to distribute one of its beers to all of its Texas stores starting in September.

The first beer product to be distributed is the Post Oak Pale Ale. The company describes the beer as “a deep golden beer that starts off with an orange marmalade sweetness and rolls directly into tangerine, grapefruit and tropical tones.”

The Post Oak Pale Ale is the first of 38 beers set to be produced by the Whole Foods Market Brewing Company.

According to the craft beer trade group Brewers Association, industry production volumes jumped 16% to 12.2 million barrels in the first six months of 2015, showing no let-up in demand for this niche. That is a substantial increase over the 10.6 million barrels sold in the same period last year, which itself was an 18% hike in production volumes recorded in the January-to-June period in 2013.