New Belgium Brewing Company

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.

Carrie Yunker ended her more than two-decade run at Bell’s Brewery on a high note Monday – Oberon Day, the annual release of the company’s spring-summer seasonal wheat beer.

Dollar sales of craft beer declined -4.2%, to more than $596.2 million, year-to-date (YTD) through February 23 in off-premise retailers tracked by market research firm Circana.

Bell’s Brewery executive vice president (EVP) Carrie Yunker will depart from the company next month after more than two decades with the Comstock, Michigan-based brewery.

Craft’s rolling four-week losses improved to start 2025, according to the most recent report from market research firm Circana. The segment’s off-premise dollar sales declined -3.1% and volume, measured in case sales, declined -4.6% in the four-week period ending January 26 (L4W) at multi-outlet grocery, mass retail and convenience stores (MULO+C). That marked an improvement over the prior four-week period (through December 29, 2024), when craft dollars declined -5.1% and volume declined -6.5%.

New Belgium CEO Shaun Belongie joins the Brewbound Podcast to discuss the comeback in Asheville, the company’s still-unfolding contingency plans and the road ahead.

Off-premise dollar sales of craft beer declined -3.3%, to more than $4.6 billion, in 2024, according to multi-outlet grocery, mass retail and convenience store data shared by market research firm Circana.

Kirin-owned New Belgium Brewing and Bell’s Brewery both built their foundations on amber ales. More than three decades later, their portfolios look a little different, in very intentional moves to stay relevant with the rapidly changing bev-alc market, CEO Shaun Belongie shared during Beer Marketer’s Insights’ seminar, held this week in New York City.

An industry-wide effort is needed to reverse soft beer category trends, elevate the category and appeal to young legal-drinking-age (LDA) consumers, leaders from New Belgium, Pabst Brewing and Athletic Brewing shared during a discussion with consultant Amy Jo Martin as part of the general session of the National Beer Wholesaler Association (NBWA) Annual Convention in San Diego.

San Francisco-based Magnolia Brewing is changing hands once again. Kirin-owned Lion Little World Beverages acquired the brewery as part of the 2019 acquisition of New Belgium Brewing.

New Belgium Brewing eliminated the roles of seven employees Thursday as part of a reorganization of its sales and marketing structure, a spokesperson told Brewbound.

New Belgium will take over production of Kirin Ichiban and Kirin Light in the U.S. when the Japanese lager brand’s contract brewing agreement with Anheuser-Busch InBev (A-B) expires later this year, New Belgium announced today. New Belgium is a subsidiary of Kirin-owned, Australian-based Lion.

Production at craft breweries outside of the Brewers Association’s (BA) craft brewer definition collectively declined -6% on a comparable basis, to nearly 7.6 million barrels in 2023, according to data shared in the May/June edition of the New Brewer Magazine.

3 Tier Beverages’ Donn Bichsel Jr. and Mary Mills share why data with the top 15 brewers removed can reveal true market opportunities. Then, New Belgium Brewing’s Kelly McKnight explains the Voodoo Ranger maker’s new product strategy.