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Justin Kendall
Editor, Brewbound
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.
California’s Mendocino Brewing Co. and New York’s Olde Saratoga Brewing Co. have shuttered, impacting the operations of several other small companies who also produced beer at those facilities. The shutdown comes as the Indian government moves to extradite billionaire Vijay Mallya, who owns the two breweries, from London on fraud and money laundering charges in excess of $1 billion.
New Hampshire’s Smuttynose Brewing, citing overleveraging of investments and missed growth projections amidst increased competition from fellow craft brewers, is scheduled to be sold March 9 at a bank auction.
U.S. beer volume sales were roughly flat in 2017, according to retail data provider IRI Worldwide. The market research firm, which tracks category-wide sales trends at off-premise retailers, reported that total U.S. beer dollar sales topped $34 billion in the firm’s multi-outlet and convenience (MULC) universe of stores (grocery, drug, club, dollar, mass-merchandiser and military).
Facing increased competition from more than 6,000 U.S. craft breweries, Green Flash Brewing today announced plans to pull distribution from 33 states in a move that will also include a 15 percent reduction of its workforce.
In this week’s edition of Last Call: Lyft collaborates on a Chicago beer release; Molson Coors acquires a U.K. cider maker; Modern Times begins production in Oregon; Crazy Mountain vacates its Edwards taproom; and more news.
Twenty-five years after Greg Kelly started Red Brick Brewing Company — then known as Atlanta Brewing Company — the company is looking re-establish its position in metro Atlanta by revamping its portfolio to include new core products and more taproom exclusive beers.
Just five months after selling to Constellation Brands, Funky Buddha Brewery is seeing the benefits of its new partnership. The South Florida craft brewery will take advantage of brewing and canning capacity at Ballast Point, another Constellation-owned company, and launch its product in cans for the first time.
Three days after sales of recreational cannabis began in California, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a memo calling for a stricter enforcement of federal marijuana laws and, in the process, rescinded Obama-era Department of Justice protections for legal cannabis that was included in the 2013 Cole Memorandum. Brewbound polled beer industry professionals from all three tiers, and most suggested that legalized recreational marijuana would have little impact on beer sales.
Constellation Brands reported its third-quarter fiscal 2018 earnings Friday, which were highlighted by 9.1 percent growth in beer depletions (sales-to-retailers) and a 5.9 percent increase in shipments over the comparable three-month period.
After slashing 10 percent of his workforce at the end of last year, Summit Brewing founder Mark Stutrud said his company is heading into 2018 with an increased focus on selling more sessionable core products while simultaneously strengthening its local presence in Minnesota.