Following a year of flat sales at off-premise retail in 2017, U.S. beer dollar sales increased 3 percent through the first four weeks of 2018, according to retail data provider IRI Worldwide. IRI, a Chicago-based market research firm that tracks category-wide sales trends at off-premise retailers, reported total U.S. dollar sales of about $2.2 billion through January 28 in its multi-outlet and convenience (MULC) universe of stores (grocery, drug, club, dollar, mass-merchandiser and military).

Despite calls from legislative leaders to reform Massachusetts’ controversial beer franchise laws, a state legislative committee failed to advance a trio of competing reform bills offered by brewers and wholesalers by the February 7 deadline. Now, those measures will go back to the House and Senate, setting back more than year of reform efforts.

After more than 14 years with Heineken, Nuno Teles is departing the company to become president of Diageo North America’s beer division. Teles, who has served as Heineken USA’s chief marketing officer since 2014, will take over the Diageo role from Todd Day on March 1 and report to Diageo North America president Deirdre Mahlan.

After the Pacific Northwest’s hop production reached a record 104 million pounds in 2017, the Hop Growers of America, a Yakima-based non-profit trade association, warned hop farmers that the industry has reached a saturation point and warned brewers to contract “cautiously and pragmatically.”

One week after announcing plans to acquire Oregon-based General Distributors, Portland’s Columbia Distributing today said it would purchase a majority of the assets of western Washington-based wholesaler Marine View Beverage. A purchase price was not disclosed. The deal, which is slated to close April 30, will add nearly 8 million cases to Columbia’s business, according to Marine View’s website.

New Dogfish Head COO and president George Pastrana has only been on the job for about three weeks, but he said brewery founders Sam and Mariah Calagione have already welcomed him into the business as a “co-leader.”

Night Shift Brewing has brewed its last batch of beer at New Hampshire’s Smuttynose Brewing Company. The Massachusetts-based craft brewery, which partnered with Smuttynose last November for expanded production of some of its more popular offerings, has begun contract brewing with Isle Brewers Guild (IBG) in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, following news that Smuttynose would be sold at an auction.

Nearly three weeks after shuttering its taproom, production has ceased at California’s Mendocino Brewing Company’s Ukiah-based facility.

As Sunday’s Super Bowl matchup between the New England Patriots and the Philadelphia Eagles unfolds on the field, Anheuser-Busch InBev will be attempting to capture viewers’ attention by running six ads during the commercial breaks.

2017 was historically bad for U.S. brewers, who shipped 3.8 million fewer barrels of beer than the previous year, according to the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau’s (TTB) unofficial estimate of domestic tax paid shipments. According to industry trade association the Beer Institute (BI) — which represents the interests of all brewers and importers and publishes the TTB’s monthly estimates — U.S. beer companies shipped about 170 million barrels of beer in 2017, compared to nearly 174 million barrels in 2016.

Following last year’s sale of Asheville’s Wicked Weed to Anheuser-Busch InBev, 23 North Carolina breweries have banded together to form the Charlotte Independent Brewers Alliance (CIBA), a non-profit membership group aimed at distinguishing local beer and cider makers from their competitors.

In this week’s Press Clips: Buffalo Wild Wings tests alcohol delivery in California; Old Town settles its trademark dispute with the city of Portland; a new study says alcohol sales lag in medical marijuana states; and more.

San Diego’s Ballast Point Brewing will open the first on-site brewery in Anaheim’s downtown Disney District at Disneyland Resort this fall. The Disney taproom is the seventh Ballast Point location in Southern California — and first in Orange County — for the Constellation Brands-owned craft brewery. The move is part of the beer company’s ongoing strategy to grow the Ballast Point brand through local outposts both in California and across the country.

In an effort to combat the influence Texas wholesalers wield with local lawmakers, the state’s craft brewers guild has launched its own political action committee, called CraftPAC. In a press release, the Texas Craft Brewers Guild said the goal of CraftPAC would be to overturn “archaic, anti-competitive beer laws” that have “had a chilling effect on the industry’s growth.”