New Belgium Brewing Company

New Belgium announces national releases for Tartastic Strawberry Lemon and Voodoo Ranger Guava Spruce DIPA.

The next big thing in hoppy beer is here. Say hello to The Hemperor HPA. New Belgium Brewing’s new year-round release offers a mystical marriage of hops and hemp that fills the senses with a ground-breaking blend of herbal olfactory like no other beer on the market.

The Brewers Association has officially recognized hazy New England-style IPAs as a bona fide beer style. In a press release, the trade group today announced changes to its “Beer Style Guidelines,” a reference for brewers and beer competition organizers that includes style descriptions and product specifications. Among the new styles of beer featured in the 2018 guidebook are three cloudier offerings – “Juicy or Hazy Pale Ale,” “Juicy or Hazy IPA” and “Juicy or Hazy Double IPA” — which over the years have become known as New England-style or Northeast IPAs.

The Brewers Association today released its annual rankings of the top 50 U.S. beer companies based on 2017 sales volume estimates. Here’s how things shook out:

Belgium Brewing and Mexico City’s Primus Microcerveceria have teamed up to capture the spirit and flavor of Mexican street culture and art with their newest collaborative release, Mural Agua Fresca Cerveza.

Yet another U.S. beer company is making cuts to its workforce due to slowing sales of craft beer. New Belgium Brewing Company, and employee-owned business with production facilities in Fort Collins, Colorado, and Asheville, North Carolina, today laid off 28 employees across the production, administration, finance, human resources and IT departments.

New Belgium Brewing is launching a new kettle-soured series of fruit-forward beers in 2018, riffing on the Belgian tradition of adding fruit to create crisp, slightly tart and refreshing flavor profiles.

Baker Tilly Capital, LLC, a boutique investment bank for middle-market businesses, successfully assisted Magnolia Brewing Company, LLC (Magnolia) in the sale of its business assets to a group led by New Belgium Brewing Company (New Belgium) as part of a bankruptcy proceeding.

New Belgium Brewing today announced the hiring of Shaun Belongie as its new vice president of marketing. Belongie, who joined the Colorado-headquartered craft brewery earlier this month, replaces Ruairi Twomey, who departed last July.

New Belgium Brewing Company has named Backbone Media as its media buying and public relations agency of record.

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).

New Belgium Brewing is kicking off the new year with a new addition to the Voodoo Ranger family, Juicy Haze IPA. This medium bodied, unfiltered IPA is packed with tropical aromas and big citrus flavors from a delicious blend of Citra hops combined with Cascade, Centennial, Simcoe and Nugget.

New Belgium will finish 2017 “flat to slightly up,” which newly appointed CEO Steve Fechheimer considers a victory in a crowded craft beer industry that has slowed to single-digit growth.

As the end of 2017 draws near, U.S. beer volume sales remain roughly flat, according to recent data from Chicago-based market research firm IRI Worldwide. IRI, which tracks beer sales at off-premise retailers, reported that total beer sales through the first 11 months of 2017 exceeded $31.8 billion in the firm’s multi-outlet and convenience. Through December 3, U.S. beer volume sales declined 0.5 percent while total beer dollar sales increased 1.1 percent.