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.
After delaying its official 2016 earnings release by nearly three weeks, Craft Brew Alliance today issued fourth-quarter and full-year 2016 results, reporting a portfolio-wide shipment decline of 6 percent despite continued growth for the company’s Kona Brewing brand. Kona shipments increased 13 percent in 2016 while depletions grew 17 percent, but significant declines across the Widmer and Redhook brands resulted in overall “flat” depletion trends in 2016.
Night Shift Brewing’s recently launched wholesale operation, Night Shift Distributing, has signed its first four craft brewery partners. Announced Wednesday, the wholesaler wing of the Everett, Massachusetts-headquartered craft brewery will begin selling products from Pipeworks Brewing Company (Chicago, Illinois), Magnify Brewing (Fairfield, New Jersey), Mast Landing Brewing Company (Westbrook, Maine) and the Reinheits Boten Group (New York importer of German beer) in early April.
America’s oldest brewery is evolving to a more modern look. D.G. Yuengling & Son today announced that, after three decades, it is updating the packaging for its Traditional Lager as well as Light Lager and Black & Tan porter brands.
Massachusetts contract brewery Clown Shoes spread itself thin last year. On its way to producing about 12,500 barrels of beer in 2016, Clown Shoes maxed out its allotted capacity with longtime partner brewery Ipswich Ale Brewery.
The answer to Stony Creek Brewery’s next distribution move was parked in the lot outside of its Branford, Connecticut, tasting room. There, the license plates pointed north.
Maine’s D.L. Geary Brewing Co. has been sold to a Freeport businessman, the Portland Press Herald reported this week. Alan Lapoint has reportedly taken over management of Portland, Maine’s first craft brewery and plans to take over ownership of the brewery before the end of the year. A deal for the brewery was officially struck on Wednesday, the Press Herald reported, however a sale price was not disclosed.
Last Call: BrewDog Crowdfunds Hotel Project; California ABC Fines A-B Wholesalers for Pay-to-Play; California Craft Brewers Association Introduces Retirement and 401K Program; Bud Light Sends Dirk Nowitzki 30,000 Beers.
Legislative Update: Maryland Brewers Association Teams Up with Diageo; Minnesota Lawmakers Pass Sunday Sales Bill; Mississippi Direct Taproom Sales Governor’s Signature Away From Law; Montana Bill Attempts to Raise Production Cap to 60,000 Barrels; North Carolina Brewers Attempt to Raise Cap, Run into Wholesaler Opposition.
At least six small breweries have closed or announced plans to close since last December, and at least two other companies have temporarily staved off marketplace exits during that time.
Massachusetts’ Castle Island Brewing Company has expanded its capacity for the second time in 15 months. Brewery founder and president Adam Romanow told Brewbound that increased demand for his company’s core beers — Candlepin Hoppy Session Ale and Keeper IPA — led to the installation of three new 60-barrel fermentation tanks that increased the brewery’s capacity to more than 13,000 barrels annually.
Beers from Michigan’s Bell’s Brewery will officially land in Texas this month. The brewery has signed with Silver Eagle Distributors for coverage in Houston and San Antonio, and distribution will begin in early March.
Wine and marijuana are cutting into craft beer’s buzz, as growth in each of those segments took some use occasions away from a craft category that slowed to single-digit growth in 2016.
