New hard seltzer offerings continue to play a “vital role” in driving growth of the booming segment, while several core SKUs keep “churning out growth,” Bump Williams Consulting found in the firm’s latest analysis of the $4.1 billion and climbing hard seltzer segment.

Registration for the Brewers Association’s (BA) annual Craft Brewers Conference (CBC) and BrewExpo America opens Tuesday, May 4, and the trade group has provided an overview of safety measures for the trade show.

The National Beer Wholesaler Association’s (NBWA) annual legislative conference reconvened, albeit virtually, a year after the pandemic forced the cancellation of the 2020 event.

California craft brewers had a rougher 2020 than the overall industry, as in-state volume production declined 11% compared to 9% nationwide, Brewers Association (BA) chief economist Bart Watson reported last week during his presentation at the California Craft Brewers Association’s spring summit.

Anheuser-Busch InBev has forged a master distributor agreement with Canteen Spirits, while its growth and innovation arm ZX Ventures has made an investment in the 2-year-old ready-to-drink canned cocktail brand.

After initial projections that the hard seltzer segment would grow at a rate of 70-100%, Boston Beer CEO Dave Burwick said the expectation is now in the 60-90% range, with Truly outpacing the segment.

Boston Beer Company’s torrid run driven by Truly Hard Seltzer and Twisted Tea continued into the first quarter of 2021. Through the first 13 weeks of 2021, Boston Beer — whose brands include Samuel Adams, Truly Hard Seltzer, Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, Twisted Tea and Angry Orchard — reported a 48% increase in depletions and a 60.1% increase in shipments.

Canadian cannabis firm Canopy Growth announced today a partnership with Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits to distribute its portfolio of CBD-infused beverages in the U.S.

Off-premise dollar sales of craft beer have maintained a “moderate growth” rate through the first three months of 2021, as dollar sales increased 6%, to $1.3 billion, according to NielsenIQ data shared by Bump Williams Consulting.

The COVID-19 pandemic driven shutdown of on-premise service at bars and restaurants led to a big but expected cut in draft packaging last year, according to the 2020 “Package Mix Report” shared by the Beer Institute and compiled by the National beer Wholesalers Association’s Department of Industry Affairs.

The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) has accepted an $850,000 offer in compromise from Chicago-based Lakeshore Beverage’s RN Acquisition LLC and City Beverage – Markham LLC for alleged trade practice violations from 2014 through the present.

Firestone Walker has reached a deal to acquire the Cali-Squeeze brand from SLO Brewing Co. Firestone Walker added that it has been “historically reluctant to develop beers outside the traditional footprint.” Nevertheless, the company has toyed with fruited beers but ultimately “recognized that Cali-Squeeze already had everything we were looking for.”

Hard seltzers will be receiving more shelf space in convenience stores, according to Goldman Sachs analyst Bonnie Herzog’s latest “Beverage Bytes” survey of convenience store beverage buyers (representing 30,000 retail locations, or about 20% of the c-store channel).

Molson Coors Beverage Company announced today that it will make an equity investment in TRU Colors Brewery, a Wilmington, North Carolina-based craft brewery with a mission to end street violence.