Jessica Infante joined Brewbound in 2019 after nearly a decade in a variety of marketing roles in the craft beer industry. Prior to that, she was a daily newspaper reporter at the Jersey Shore. Jess holds a bachelor’s degree in magazine journalism from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University and a master’s degree in integrated marketing communication from Emerson College. She is a certified Cicerone and lives in Salem, Massachusetts.
Canadian cannabis company HEXO Corp. has established its U.S. presence with the acquisition of a production facility in Fort Collins, Colorado. “This will be the first expansion into the U.S. market,” HEXO general manager of U.S. operations Charles Bowman told Brewbound. “There’s more forthcoming, but this is the bedrock. This is our foundation.”
Denver Beer Co. is joining the NFT scene.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo ended the state’s state of emergency on Thursday, which meant the expiration of delivery and to-go privileges granted to breweries, bars and restaurants during the pandemic. The New Jersey bill (S.B. 3452) that would have brought the state excise tax rate on spirits-based, ready-to-drink canned cocktails in line with beer has been pulled from consideration for now, sources confirmed with Brewbound.
Boulder, Colorado-based POS software provider Arryved has announced a $20 million funding round, which the company plans to invest in brand marketing and expansion.
Heineken has struck a deal to acquire additional shares of United Breweries Limited (UBL), making it the majority shareholder of the Bengaluru, India-headquartered conglomerate, the Dutch beer giant announced in a press release.
The owners of the Stonewall Inn — the historic bar in New York City where a 1969 uprising sparked the LGBTQ community’s fight for equality and is commemorated every June during Pride month — are removing Anheuser-Busch InBev offerings from the bar in advance of New York’s annual Pride march on Sunday, June 27.
Boosted by an earlier-than-expected seasonal transition and the return of the on-premise channel, sales of Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy have increased 13% year-to-date, according to the Molson Coors Beverage Company blog. “As we continued to excel with distribution and sales and the off-premise, we were able to quickly transition into Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy,” Dick Leinenkugel, president and chief beer merchant of Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company, told Brewbound.
E-commerce convenience store delivery platform GoPuff has struck another deal to acquire a brick-and-mortar alcohol retailer, Louisville, Kentucky-based Liquor Barn, which operates 23 stores throughout the state.
PepsiCo filed an application with the U.S Patent and Trademark Office to trademark its Rockstar brand in the beer and “alcoholic fruit cocktail drinks; alcoholic malt beverages, except beers; hard seltzer” categories on June 14.
Sierra Nevada has filed a counter lawsuit against Matagrano, Inc., the Chico-headquartered craft brewery’s former South San Francisco-based wholesaler, in the Superior Court of the state of California, County of San Mateo. The trademark lawsuit between Constellation Brands and Anheuser-Busch InBev’s Grupo Modelo over the former’s ability to produce and sell Corona Hard Seltzer will continue, despite Constellation’s motion to dismiss, a federal judge ruled this week.
Minhas Craft Brewery, the second-oldest continuously run brewery in the U.S., is producing Happy Dad Hard Seltzer, which was created by the Nelk Boys, a group of Canadian YouTubers with more than 6.6 million subscribers.
Wine and spirits giant E. & J. Gallo, which makes popular ready-to-drink vodka soda cocktail High Noon Sun Sips, has announced it is building a new production and distribution facility in Chester County, South Carolina. The $423 million facility is expected to generate 496 jobs over the next eight years, according to a press release.
Beer category off-premise dollar sales declined -7% during the two weeks surrounding Memorial Day weekend compared to the same period in 2020, according to market research firm NielsenIQ. The decline was “expected, given the shift back to on-premise establishments,” NielsenIQ vice president of beverage alcohol practice Danelle Kosmal wrote in a report on holiday weekend sales.
Sugar-based hard seltzers are now considered malt beverages in Oregon and will be taxed accordingly, ending the state’s discrepancy with the federal government’s classification of the popular bubbly beverages.
