Justin Kendall provides daily coverage of the beer industry on Brewbound.com, conducts live-streamed interviews during Brewbound’s events and co-produces the Brewbound podcast. Kendall is a nearly 20-year career journalist who led alt-weekly newspapers in Kansas City, Missouri, and Des Moines, Iowa.
Atlanta’s New Realm Brewing has won a bid to acquire the brewing equipment assets currently located inside Green Flash Brewing’s former production facility in Virginia Beach, sources told Brewbound.
In recent years, Anheuser-Busch InBev’s “global growth and innovation team” ZX Ventures has invested in at least nine international breweries, and now the company is pushing into spirits. ZX Ventures today announced the acquisition of Atom Group, a United Kingdom-based spirits, eCommerce and import business. Specific financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Two years after announcing plans to build a $95 million secondary brewing facility in Roanoke, Virginia, Oregon’s Deschutes Brewery has hit the pause button. The company, which was set to purchase 49 acres of land by May 1, is in the process of renegotiating an incentive package in order to maintain “flexibility” on the timeline, size and scope of the project, Deschutes CEO Michael LaLonde told Brewbound.
In this edition of People Moves: Uinta Brewing hires a new CEO; Deschutes names a new director of brewery ops; NAB announces plans to grow its sales team; and A-B expands its North American executive leadership team.
In this week’s edition of Press Clips: Stone Brewing fires back at MillerCoors; BrewDog buys a UK cider maker and eyes an IPO; Reuben’s Brews identifies a new production space; and Tow Yard Brewing closes.
It took two months, but MillerCoors has finally responded to Stone Brewing’s trademark lawsuit. In February, the San Diego craft brewery filed a lawsuit against the multinational beer company alleging that its rebranded packaging and advertisements for the Keystone brand infringed upon Stone Brewing’s own “Stone” trademark. Early this morning, MillerCoors answered back with several counterclaims.
Starting this summer, Bell’s Brewery will begin selling beer throughout New England and New Jersey, expanding its footprint to 39 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico in the process. The Michigan-based craft brewery will partner with 11 beer distributors across Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Jersey.
Less than one month after announcing plans to purchase Smuttynose Brewing Company from Provident Bank, New Hampshire’s Runnymede Investments has finalized its deal for the struggling Portsmouth-area craft brewery and launched a 90-day plan aimed at helping it return to growth.
Less than two weeks after Chicago’s Revolution Brewing announced a deal for a branded taproom at Guaranteed Rate Field, Anheuser-Busch-owned Goose Island, also based in the Windy City, has inked a multi-year deal to become the “official craft beer” of the Chicago White Sox.
For the second consecutive year, U.S. craft beer exports grew in the low-single digits. However, growth of international shipments has slowed considerably as the export market has matured and competition from brewers in those foreign markets has increased. The Brewers Association (BA) announced Tuesday that U.S. craft beer exports grew 3.6 percent, to 482,309 barrels, in 2017.
After raising more than $6 million from investors over the last five years, Sonoma Cider has ceased operations at its production facility and taproom in Northern California, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat reported. In a statement issued to the Press Democrat, Sonoma Cider co-founder and CEO David Cordtz said the Healdsburg-based maker of hard cider products “suddenly and without warning” lost its investor funding and closed as of March 28.
Anheuser-Busch InBev today announced a voluntary recall in the U.S. and Canada of a “limited” number of Stella Artois bottles that may contain glass particles due to a packaging defect.
Another chapter in the story of Green Flash Brewing’s distressed financial situation was written today as the San Diego-based company announced plans to close its Cellar 3 barrel-aging facility and taproom in Poway, California.