Bars and restaurants are unlikely to welcome new customers soon, as the number of people who feel comfortable going out has hit its max.

New Belgium will wade into the increasingly crowded hard seltzer segment next year with Fruit Smash, Brewbound has confirmed. Massachusetts’ Trillium Brewing reopened its popular beer garden on Boston’s Rose Kennedy Greenway today for its fourth season.

Surly Brewing management and workers attempting to organize a union at the Minneapolis-based craft brewery have reached an agreement on a union election after several weeks of negotiations, Unite Here Local 17 announced Thursday.

Through the first days of September, year-to-date off-premise beer category dollar sales are up 16.4%, according to market research firm IRI. Total beer sales have reached $30.1 billion in multi-outlet grocery, mass retail and convenience stores, the firm reported.

If Summer 2019 was the season hard seltzer found its footing, Summer 2020 was the year it blasted off. Off-premise dollar sales of hard seltzer between the Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends this year reached $1.75 billion — a full $1.1 billion more than the same period last year, according to market research firm Nielsen.

New Belgium Brewing is planning to take over the former Little Creatures taproom in San Francisco’s Mission Bay neighborhood by early 2021, according to Eater San Francisco.

Heineken has entered the increasingly crowded hard seltzer segment with two different brands in different parts of the world. And After announcing the end of a tariff exemption for Canadian aluminum last month, President Donald Trump has changed his mind, according to a statement last week from the office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

Ten months after it was announced, the Department of Justice has approved the merger of Craft Brew Alliance (CBA) and Anheuser-Busch InBev.

Despite out of stock issues from key suppliers, Labor Day weekend beer sales increased over the holiday weekend last year and indicate the beer category’s off-premise sales will finish the year strong, according to a report from Goldman Sachs Equity Research.

A month after launching its code of conduct for members, the Brewers Association (BA) shared its complaint and disciplinary process during a town hall meeting on Tuesday. “We’re interested in creating a process that provides education and self remediation — we’re not looking for punishment, cutting off heads,” said BA board member Wynne Odell, co-founder of Fort Collins, Colorado-based Odell Brewing.

The leaders of D.G. Yuengling & Sons Inc. and Molson Coors Beverage Company say the smuggling of beer is alive and well. “Just as is the case with a certain brand out of Golden, Colorado, more than a few people have smuggled Yuengling across state lines in the trunk of their car,” Molson Coors CEO Gavin Hattersley said, drawing a comparison to the demand for Coors beer in the 1970s.

A majority of Americans support extending federal excise tax cuts that were enacted as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017, according to a survey commissioned by industry trade group the Beer Institute (BI).

Some Florida bars and breweries that don’t serve food will be able to reopen for service at 50% capacity on Monday. Halsey Beshears, Florida’s secretary of the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, tweeted Thursday evening that Gov. Ron DeSantis had rescinded the executive order that forced them to close in June.

Several West Coast breweries are closing for outdoor service and some have been evacuated due to several wildfires and the impact on air quality in California, Oregon and Washington.