The May Beer Purchasers’ Index (BPI) showed “sequential improvement” compared to the previous three months, with the overall index reading 45 and at-risk inventory hitting 47, falling below the 50 benchmark for the first time since January, the National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA) shared Friday.

Highland Brewing founder Oscar P. Wong, known as the “Godfather of Asheville Craft Beer,” has died at age 84, the Asheville craft brewery shared today.

Volume at craft breweries outside of the Brewers Association’s (BA) definition of small and independent declined 4% on a comparable basis, to 6.752 million barrels, in 2024, the trade group reported in the May/June edition of The New Brewer magazine.

Six of the 10 largest Brewers Association-defined (BA) craft breweries recorded volume declines in 2024, according to data from the trade group’s May/June edition of The New Brewer magazine.

Beverage-alcohol’s embrace of flavor and craft beer’s shifting distribution trends were among spotlighted issues during last week’s Beer Marketer’s Insights Spring Conference in Chicago. Leaders from BeatBox Beverages, Boston Beer Company, Atomic Brands, Columbia Distributing and Anheuser-Busch InBev (A-B) shared where their business and the beer category is heading. Here are a few soundbites from the conference.

New breakout brands, Q1’s soft trends and the beer industry’s non-alcoholic (NA) plays were hot topics during Beer Marketer’s Insights’ Spring Conference, held earlier this week in Chicago.

U.S. brewers shipped more beer this March, with domestic tax paid shipments increasing 0.7% year-over-year (YoY), to 12.5 million barrels of beer, the Beer Institute reported, citing domestic tax paid estimates from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB).

Ball Corp. chairman and CEO Daniel W. Fisher has once again called on major beer manufacturers to deploy “more aggressive pricing” strategies to “push volume,” suggesting those strategies have worked for energy drink companies and other non-alcoholic (NA) beverage producers.

The U.S. beer industry generated $470.96 billion in economic output in 2024, holding 1.58% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), according to the biennial Beer Serves America study commissioned by the Beer Institute (BI) and the National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA).

Rhinegeist is ghosting alcohol. The Cincinnati craft brewery will add its first non-alcoholic (NA) beer to its portfolio later this summer. Ghost is an “affiliated brand” that plays on the “geist” name, meaning ghost or spirit, Rhinegeist CEO Adam Bankovich told Brewbound. The NA beer is one of two big portfolio additions for Rhinegeist this year, with Cincy Light’s first line extension, Cincy Light Lime (4.2% ABV), rolling out now on draft.

Hard seltzer’s sales may have peaked in 2020 at $4.1 billion, but Happy Dad CEO Sam Shahidi believes there’s still a mountain to climb for his company. Speaking to Brewbound earlier this year, Shahidi laid out a three-year vision for challenging White Claw as the top-selling hard seltzer brand.

With craft brewers facing an overwhelming amount of uncertainty, the 2025 Craft Brewers Conference comes at a good time for those interested in tapping into winning strategies. While I encourage you to be in the room for Brewers Association (BA) CEO Bart Watson’s state of the industry speech at 9 a.m. ET on Wednesday, April 30, there are several other seminars (and parties) worth your time.

Around 10,000 industry members are expected to make the trip to Indianapolis for the 2025 Craft Brewers Conference and BrewExpo America (April 28 to May 1). The gathering takes place against a backdrop of growing headwinds for craft breweries and an overhaul of CBC’s host organization, the Brewers Association.

Westbound & Down Brewing Company is aiming to quadruple its production and achieve $3 million in profits by 2028. The Colorado craft brewery, with five taprooms across the state (Denver, Idaho Springs, Lafayette, Basalt and Aspen), is in the midst of a $1.2 million crowdfunding (CF) raise.