With tax breaks for alcohol producers set to expire at the end of 2019, the push to make excise tax relief permanent officially started today as the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act (CBMTRA) was reintroduced into the U.S. Senate by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Roy Blunt (R-MO).

Virginia may be for lovers, but it won’t be a place where drinkers can purchase Bell’s beer for much longer. Bell’s Brewery founder Larry Bell notified the company’s seven Virginia wholesalers on Friday that the Michigan craft brewery would cease shipments to the state after filling final orders.

Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, ranked by industry trade group the Brewers Association as the third largest U.S. craft brewery, today announced the purchase of San Francisco-based Sufferfest Beer Company. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, and the transaction is expected to close in early April.

ZX Ventures, Anheuser-Busch InBev’s venture capital arm, has acquired the remaining portion of beer ratings website RateBeer.com that it did not already own. Financial terms of the deal were not announced, but a spokesperson for ZX Ventures said the transaction had closed.

Green Flash Brewing Company chief executive Michael Taylor is “bullish” on the San Diego craft brewery’s prospects for a turnaround in 2019. In a conversation with Brewbound, Taylor — a former Anheuser-Busch executive who was hired as CEO last June — said he’s projecting 20 percent growth for a Green Flash business that ran into significant financial turmoil around this time last year.

Sunday’s Super Bowl matchup between the New England Patriots and Los Angeles Rams will mark Anheuser-Busch InBev’s biggest ever bet made on the big game.

Nine months after urging retailers to adopt its independence seal, the Brewers Association (BA) today launched an extension of that campaign, encouraging state guilds, beer festivals, homebrew shops and other craft beer supporters to adopt a modified version of its original badge.

Sales of beer, cider and flavored malt beverages topped $38.2 billion in 2018, according to market research firm Nielsen, which tracks category-wide sales at major off-premise retailers.

In this week’s edition of Last Call: Asahi announces plans to acquire London Pride maker; U.S. beer shipments decline in 2018; Charlie Papazian exits the Brewers Association; Clare Rose lays off 14 employees; and more industry news.

A potential buyer for troubled Canadian brewing equipment manufacturer Diversified Metal Engineering (DME) appears to have emerged. In a January 18 report, Alvarez & Marsal, the receiver appointed in November after DME defaulted on loan payments to the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), said it is negotiating with a potential buyer for the company’s primary business in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.

Amid growing interest in more “functional” alcoholic beverages, one of the country’s pioneering hard kombucha brands is undergoing a makeover in an effort to appeal to younger female consumers looking for boozier versions of the fermented tea beverage. Originally launched in 2013 as a more traditional non-alcoholic kombucha, Kombrewcha — which was co-founded by Honest Tea co-creator Barry Nalebuff and received investment from Anheuser-Busch’s ZX Ventures in 2016 — has upped its alcohol content and unveiled new packaging as an emerging hard kombucha category begins to develop.

Maine’s craft beer industry contributed more than $260 million to the state’s economy in 2017, according to a biennial economic impact study conducted by the University of Maine in conjunction with the Maine Brewers’ Guild. The report, which examined data from 2017, notes that in-state craft breweries generated more than $168 million in total revenue, while producing an estimated 319,590 barrels of beer.

Sierra Nevada Brewing Company has a new CEO. Brewery founder Ken Grossman named former chief operating officer Jeff White to the position last October, the California-headquartered brewery confirmed to Brewbound.

A century after the ratification of Prohibition, the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that could have wide-ranging effects on the three-tier system. On Wednesday, the court heard arguments in Tennessee Wine & Spirits Retailers Association vs. Blair. At issue in the case is the constitutionality of the state of Tennessee’s two-year residency requirement for obtaining a liquor license. Additionally, the state requires a decade of residency for the renewal of liquor licenses, which expire after one year.