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.
Corporate America is reassessing its campaign spending in the wake of a rally-turned-riot at the U.S. Capitol last week by supporters of President Donald Trump that left five people — including a Capitol police officer — dead. Within the beer industry, the two largest beer manufacturers in the U.S. told Brewbound that they will review their spending.
Basketball fans might have noticed a new commercial from a spirits company during Thursday night’s NBA doubleheader on TNT trying to persuade them to ditch beer in favor of a popular cocktail. Suntory-owned Jim Beam launched a new campaign this week titled “Need a Break From Beer” with a TV spot on more than 20 national networks.
The biggest challenge the producer of popular Mexican import brands Corona, Modelo and Pacifico faced in 2020 came in March when the Mexican government ordered the shutdown of all manufacturing industries, including beer. This pause in production led to depleted inventory that was still being replenished into the third quarter and created a gap between shipments (sales to wholesalers) and depletions (sales to retailers) growth.
The federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) gave a belated holiday gift to winemakers and cidermakers on December 29: seven new permitted packaging sizes under the bureau’s standards of fill for products stronger than 7% ABV.
A dispute in one of the most prominent families in the beer industry — the Massachusetts-based Sheehans, owners of Sheehan Family Companies, which operates beer wholesalers in 13 states and Washington, D.C. — has spilled into the court system. Timothy G. Sheehan and George L. Cushing, a trustee who represents trusts that benefit Tim Sheehan and his brother John T. Sheehan, filed a civil lawsuit in Massachusetts’ Suffolk Superior Court alleging that the patriarch and matriarch of the family, Gerald (“Jerry”) and Maureen Sheehan, have violated their fiduciary duties and misappropriated company funds.
Sierra Nevada is calling a time-out on Sufferfest, the athletic-inspired, better-for-you craft beer brand it acquired nearly two years ago. “As we enter 2021, we are pausing production to explore what’s next for Sufferfest Beer Company,” the company wrote on its website.
After the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered bars and restaurants nationwide, consumers’ beer purchasing shifted to off-premise retailers. However, it wasn’t just the usual grocery and club stores that saw sales increase — among others, e-commerce, on-demand convenience delivery platform goPuff and drug store chain Walgreens have sold more beer in 2020.
Men can still enjoy two drinks per day without running afoul of the government’s nutritional guidelines. After being presented with research from the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) in July that suggested the daily alcohol allowance for men be cut in half, the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services opted not to change the recommendation put forth in its 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA), which was released today.
Since its debut in 2016, New Belgium Brewing’s Voodoo Ranger line has become a growth engine for the Fort Collins, Colorado-headquartered craft brewery. The IPA brand, fronted by a snarky, skeletal “spokescreature,” came at just the right time. Sales of New Belgium’s Ranger IPA were down 50% and the team decided the brand wasn’t salvageable.
“We needed something fresh; we needed something more relevant to the IPA category,” CEO Steve Fechheimer said during the Brewbound Live business conference earlier this month. “It was time to take a risk.”
Leaders of four emerging “beyond beer” brands shared their strategies for differentiating in an increasingly crowded field during the annual Brewbound Live business conference, which took place virtually earlier this month due to the COVID-19 pandemic’s cancellation of in-person events. “Your product has to be amazing,” canned cocktail producer Five Drinks co-founder and CEO Felipe Szpigel said during the discussion.
Federal excise tax cuts for brewers and importers have finally been made permanent. After nearly a week of uncertainty, President Donald Trump on Sunday signed into law the $900 billion economic relief package and $1.4 trillion government funding bill Congress passed last week.
U.S. brewers shipped 12.3 million barrels of beer in November 2020, a decline of 0.8% (or 96,000 fewer barrels than in 2019), according to domestic tax paid estimates from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) shared by the Beer Institute (BI).
After a tumultuous year, the beer industry is expected to finish 2020 down by 0.5% in volume, according to National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA) chief economist Lester Jones. “Despite losing all this keg volume and all this on-premise, having 20% of the on-premise market shut down basically for a certain period of time, having fewer establishments, fewer occasions, the beer market in total is going to look a lot like it has in previous years,” Jones said. “It just means a whole bunch of beer got shifted around.”
Chicago’s Revolution Brewing has promoted Doug Veliky to chief strategy officer. In his new role, Veliky will be tasked with leading the finance and marketing divisions of the company, as well as helping set the overall strategic direction of the craft brewery.
