Brewbound — Craft Beer News, Events & Jobs

Craft Brew Alliance (CBA) this week announced a pair of key leadership changes, including the departure of chief financial officer Joseph Vanderstelt and the appointment of João Paulo Falcão Vieira, vice president of Anheuser-Busch’s (A-B) North American Zone, to its board of directors.

Free State Craft Beer Delivery founder Dan Kennedy is the first to admit that he didn’t start a traditional beer wholesaling business. “I really started a trucking company,” he told Brewbound. Kennedy, who left a career as an events director at Goucher College in Towson, Maryland, to pursue entrepreneurship and a passion for beer, is the brains behind upstart Free State.

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A bipartisan group of Congressional members have called on the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate potential irregularities in the aluminum market, which they say are causing the price of the metal used in beverage cans to surge. In the letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, U.S. Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) and 31 additional congressional members pointed to “sharp increases” in the Midwest Premium — which represents the full logistics costs of shipping and storing metal in the U.S. — as the potential cause of aluminum pricing irregularities.

As Rhinegeist Brewing prepares to celebrate its fifth anniversary this weekend, the Cincinnati-based beer company is closing in on another milestone: surpassing the 100,000-barrel mark. Rhinegeist co-founder Bryant Goulding told Brewbound that the brewery is on pace to reach 100,000 barrels by the end of 2018, adding that year-to-date sales are up 30 percent even though the company hasn’t released any new innovation beers or expanded its distribution footprint.

In this week’s edition of Last Call: MillerCoors says the Trump tariffs will cost it $40 million; Magnolia founder Dave McLean leaves the company; Jester King takes on employee owners; brewery closures in Chicago, Washington and Virginia; and more news.

Three of the largest U.S. beer companies dropped a slate of new advertisements this week in an effort to capture the attention of soccer fans tuning into the 2018 World Cup. Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s largest brewer, rolled out three new medieval-themed commercials for Bud Light, one of which was created for the World Cup and produced in both English and Spanish.

Craft Brew Alliance (CBA) has taken a small step forward in expanding its nearly 3-year-long partnership with Massachusetts-based Cisco Brewers, today announcing plans to rebrand the Redhook pub in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, as an “island-inspired” destination. In a press release, CBA called the decision to convert the Redhook pub “an easy one,” pointing to the fact that the Nantucket-headquartered brewery’s flagship offerings, Whale’s Tale Pale Ale and Grey Lady, have been brewed and packaged at the Portsmouth facility since late 2015.

Beer companies haven’t effectively marketed to women, and they’re leaving a lot of opportunity for increased sales on the table, according to Bridget Brennan, CEO of Chicago-based consulting group the Female Factor. “We can’t underestimate that there has been, from a beer industry standpoint, a 150-year head start in marketing the product to guys as a guy’s product,” she told industry stakeholders who attended the Beer Institute’s annual meeting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, this week.

More than 100 brewers and state guild leaders traveled to Washington, D.C., last month to take part in the Brewers Association’s annual SAVOR craft beer and food pairing event in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol building. In addition to serving hundreds of beers alongside an assortment of cheeses, meats, and other fancy fare, industry attendees also spent time meeting with legislators to discuss a variety of issues impacting the beer industry.

North American sales of cannabis are expected to grow to $24 billion by 2021, Jessica Lukas, vice president of consumer insights at BDS Analytics, shared during the final day of the Beer Institute’s annual meeting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. That figure, she added, doesn’t account for a potential end to the federal ban on marijuana in the United States.

The Beer Institute (BI) unveiled a pair of surveys during the first day of the trade group’s annual meeting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, indicating public support for many industry issues as well as apathy from young drinkers. In his opening remarks, BI president and CEO Jim McGreevy shared the results of a poll on several hot button industry issues, including excise tax reform, President Donald Trump’s tariffs on aluminum and FDA menu labeling. Following McGreevy’s presentation, BI chief economist Michael Uhrich offered the results of a survey on the attitudes of 21- to 24-year-old consumers toward beer, wine and liquor.

Texas’ Deep Ellum Brewing was sold to Fireman Capital-backed Canarchy Craft Brewery Collective for an undisclosed sum, founder John Reardon confirmed to Brewbound. The transaction, which closed on Friday, June 8, will give Dallas-based Deep Ellum a much-needed capital infusion to finish a $3 million expansion and immediate access to increased brewing capacity at Colorado-headquartered Oskar Blues Brewing’s satellite production facility in Austin, Texas.

Less than a year after opening a $50 million U.S. production facility, Scottish craft beer makers BrewDog have embarked on a $10 million crowdfunding campaign to fund its U.S. expansion plans. BrewDog announced the campaign last week in a video in which founders James Watt and Martin Dickie drop stuffed cats from a helicopter on Wall Street in order to “openly mock the caricature of the Wall Street fat cat banker.”

In this week’s edition of Last Call: President Trump says he may support bill to end the federal marijuana ban; new brewery trademark lawsuits emerge; breweries close in Colorado and New Hampshire; and more.