Richard Mahoney, the chairman of the board of The Wine Group, is the lead investor in Chicagoland craft brewery Kings & Convicts’ acquisition of Ballast Point Brewing Company from Constellation Brands, according to the ChicagoTribune. Brooklyn Brewery restructures sales force.

Two of Pennsylvania’s most iconic businesses — D.G. Yuengling & Son and The Hershey Company — are linking up on a fall beer release, Chocolate Porter. Meanwhile, Brooklyn Brewery is betting on non-alcoholic beer catching on in the U.S., bringing its non-alcoholic hoppy lager offering, Special Effects, to select U.S. markets this fall.

For the third consecutive year, Pennsylvania produced more craft beer than any other state in the nation, Brewers Association chief economist Bart Watson shared during the Brewers of Pennsylvania’s annual Meeting of the Malts gathering in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

Together with nearby Nya Carnegiebryggeriet (New Carnegie Brewery, founded 2012 by Carlsberg Sweden and Brooklyn Brewery) Fotografiska is now launching its own beer, Echo. A beer brewed from, among other things, leftover sourdough bread from Fotografiska’s kitchens.

After more than 30 years, New York’s Brooklyn Brewery will finally begin distributing its products in an ultra-competitive California craft beer market. The company will partner with Stone Distributing for coverage throughout Southern California, and DBI and Bay Area Beverage Co. for support in Northern California.

In episode 16 of the Brewbound Podcast, Brooklyn Brewery CEO Eric Ottaway discusses the growing consumer interest in low- and no-alcohol products, the overall state of the beer business, his company’s global partnership strategy and the shrinking international opportunities for U.S. craft breweries.

On December 1, Brooklyn Brewery announced the launch of their first alcohol-free beer, Special Effects. The beer, a hoppy lager with an ABV of 0.4%, launched exclusively in Sweden with plans to expand to other markets throughout 2019.

Count Brooklyn Brewery among the growing number of beer companies that has its eyes on the health and wellness space. During last week’s Brewbound Live business conference, Brooklyn Brewery CEO Eric Ottaway said the company was on the verge of releasing a non-alcoholic beer in Sweden as the company looks to tap into increasing consumer demand for more alcohol-free brews.

In a move that will expand its U.S. distribution footprint to 29 states, Brooklyn Brewery announced Monday that it would begin selling beer in Colorado next month. The New York-based craft brewery, which also sells its products in 30 countries, is partnering with Elite Brands on the Front Range and High Country Beverage in Northern Colorado and the Western Slope. It plans to sell flagship Brooklyn Lager, as well as Bel Air Sour, Defender IPA, seasonal offerings, and draft-only releases.

Thousands of California beer industry professionals met in Sacramento last week for the California Craft Brewers Association annual three-day Craft Beer Summit, Expo and Beer Festival. As an official media partner of the event, Brewbound hosted 10 hours of live streamed interviews, and sat in on a variety of seminars during the show. Here’s what we learned.

In this week’s edition of Last Call: The Nevada Attorney General investigates MillerCoors; Stone seeks an injunction in its Keystone case; Almanac’s co-founder departs the company; and more news from the week.

Taprooms and direct-to-consumer sales were hot topics during this year’s Craft Brewers Convention in Nashville, Tennessee. Two seminars — “Building Your Brand Through the Tasting Room” and “Defense and Promotion of Tasting Rooms” — focused on the phenomenon that has agitated some retailers and wholesalers, but the topic bled into other conversations throughout the week.

Calagione — along with Brooklyn Brewery VP Dave Duffy, The BWC Company director of analytics Dave Williams and Lowes Foods senior category manager Charles Slezak — discussed the evolving craft landscape and more during a panel discussion on “Retail Strategies for Craft Brewers.

Seven months after announcing plans to create a national sales platform via investments in San Francisco’s 21st Amendment and Colorado’s Funkwerks, Brooklyn Brewery is readying for what it hopes will be a year of growth across all three brands. Speaking to Brewbound, Dave Duffy, Brooklyn’s vice president of business development, said the three companies have officially integrated their sales forces and “cross-trained on each other’s brands.”