Beer Industry News, Insights, Jobs, & Events

Can the skinny spritz become a bar call like the skinny margarita? One brand is betting on it.

Check out news items were initially reported in the Brewbound Insider Newsletter May 18-19, including headlines from Armed Forces Brewing, Barrel One, Big Grove and more.

Winemaking is a slow process, requiring years devoted to growing, harvesting, fermenting and aging before a bottle is uncorked.

Much to the frustration of its producers, the adoption of adult non-alcoholic (ANA) wine is taking a similar pace. Long dominated by sparkling varieties, still varieties of ANA wine are populating the category as mainstream wine brands enter the set, with an ability to scale and open the door to a broader addressable market with less expensive options.

Sazerac-owned BuzzBallz is the dominant brand in the RTD segment. BuzzBallz’ dollar sales increased 65.6%, to more than $569.3 million, in Circana-tracked off-premise retailers for the 52-week period ending April 19.

Leapfrogging was the theme across beverage-alcohol last week, as several upstarts jumped over their stalwart peers in dollar sales, according to the latest weekly report from market research firm Circana. In the beer category, Mark Anthony Brands’ White Claw out-earned Molson Coors’ Miller Lite by $218,720 during the week ending May 10. In spirits, Anheuser-Busch… Read more »

After a dozen years, Minneapolis’ Bauhaus Brew Labs will close its doors in late June, the brewery announced last week.

Bauhaus cited “a number of serious challenges” that contributed to its decision to cease operations, including “substantial cost increases in our supply chain, shifts in consumer preferences away from craft beer, a global pandemic and most recently, a surge in federal immigration enforcement that directly targeted our wonderful city and deeply affected businesses across the hospitality industry,” it wrote on Facebook.

While off-premise bev-alc scans have been on a rollercoaster this year (one with admittedly mild drops compared to 2025), the on-premise has been more steady, trending between flat and up 1% over the last few months.

We have a tale of 2 bev-alc approaches this week, which may help explain the larger trends afoot in both inflation and beer sales. We’ll start at the PGA Championship outside of Philly this weekend (on the classy side), where all the food and drink are completely free! Uh, unless you want a beer – that’ll be $15.

Pabst Brewing Company is discontinuing 175-year-old legacy light beer Schlitz – for the foreseeable future.

Check out news items initially reported in the Brewbound Insider Newsletter May 14-15., including headlines from RNDC, Bernstein, Brooklyn Brewery & more.

The alleged drains on beverage-alcohol in recent years have been well-documented: health and wellness, legal cannabis, consumers’ propensity for the couch instead of the bar, Generation’s Z disinterest, GLP-1 drugs. But one other driver – consumers’ perceived value for price – may not be mentioned as much as the others, and suppliers can learn from… Read more »

As RNDC continues to sell its operations across the country, this month’s distribution moves see independent and major brands scattering to new partnerships. Meanwhile, a wave of ready-to-drink (RTD) brands are pushing into new markets from Wisconsin to Southern California.

Total bev-alc dollar sales continued to decline in the latest two weeks, as even the standout growth category ready-to-drink (RTD) cocktails saw sales dip, according to the latest analysis of NIQ data from Goldman Sachs Equity Research.

Trends worsened through mid-April for the majority of the 25 largest beer category vendors at off-premise retailers, according to market research firm Circana. Total beer recorded dollar sales gains of 0.9%, while volume, measured in case sales, declined 0.7%, year-to-date (YTD) through April 19 at multi-outlet grocery, mass retail and convenience stores (MULO+C). In the last four weeks (L4W), those metrics decelerated to +0.1% in dollar sales and -1.4% in volume.