Craft Brew Alliance

The continued acceleration of Kona beer sales during the third quarter couldn’t offset company-wide shipment and depletion declines of other Craft Brew Alliance (CBA) offerings, the Portland, Oregon-headquartered company reported today. In Q3, Kona depletions increased 9 percent as the brand grew in both off- and on-premise channels. The depletion growth followed increases of 7 percent and 3 percent in the second and first quarters of the year, respectively.

Kona Brewing Company, Hawaii’s first and favorite craft brewery, has launched a refresh of the fan-favorite Island Hopper Variety Pack, now available in stores. The newly designed package includes two new IPAs – Castaway IPA and a new release to the mainland, island favorite Kua Bay IPA, along with fan-favorites Big Wave Golden Ale and Longboard Lager.

Widmer Brothers is teaming up with Lyft on a limited-release beer, “Closing Time IPA,” a sessionable IPA that will be released in 16-ounce cans at select bars and taverns across the Portland metro area just in time for Halloween.

Craft Brew Alliance’s nearly four-year-long strategy of partnering with smaller brands has officially culminated with three separate purchase agreements that, combined, will cost the company less than $45 million. CBA, a publicly traded craft brewery group headquartered in Portland, Ore., today announced that it would wholly acquire Massachusetts’ Cisco Brewers, North Carolina’s Appalachian Mountain Brewery and Miami’s Wynwood Brewing.

Surging freight costs, a shortage of long-haul truck drivers and new laws restricting the number of hours that drivers can be on the road are cutting into profits of beer companies and other major corporations throughout the United States. Although increased transportation costs are affecting all consumer goods industries, Beer Institute chief economist Michael Uhrich told Brewbound that they’re disproportionately affecting the beer industry because the vast majority of beer sold domestically is shipped. Last year, beer companies shipped 2.9 billion cases of beer, according to the National Beer Wholesalers Association.

As the U.S. brewing industry inches closer to a record 7,000 craft beer companies in operation, hundreds of distressed breweries are expected to close in 2019 and many of those failed enterprises will turn to asset auctions as a way to pay off debt. Brewers Association chief economist Bart Watson told Brewbound during a live-streamed interview at last week’s California Craft Brewers Association Summit that he anticipates as many as 300 brewery closures by the end of 2018. According to Watson, he expects the gap between openings and closings to shrink over time, and there could be as many as 500 closures in the next couple of years. The increasing number of brewery closures has also meant an uptick in business for auction houses.

Craft Brew Alliance, Inc. (“CBA”) (Nasdaq: BREW), a leading craft brewing company, announced today that Andy Thomas, chief executive officer, and Scott Mennen, chief operating officer, will present at the Barclays Global Consumer Staples Conference in Boston, Mass. at 10:30 am ET on Thursday, September 6, 2018.

Cisco Brewers is bringing a slice of Nantucket to Boston and keeping summer going with a new pop-up beer garden in Seaport this fall that will feature its award-winning craft beer and wine, paired with raw bar and tacos from Loco Taqueria & Oyster Bar.

Following the release of Craft Brew Alliance’s second-quarter results on Wednesday, CEO Andy Thomas hailed his company’s financial performance as the “strongest validation” yet that CBA is a “company transformed.” During a call with analysts and investors today, Thomas said CBA is now in its “strongest operational and strategic position” company history, which he attributed to the growth of the Kona brand, a reshaped CBA portfolio that now includes three smaller craft partners, a rationalized brewery footprint, improved gross margin, and a “far more profitable business model.”

Craft Brew Alliance (CBA) today reported its second-quarter earnings, which were highlighted by a 2 percent revenue increase, to $61.8 million. CBA attributed the uptick in net sales to increased shipments of the Kona brand, and increases in average unit pricing, despite continued Widmer Brothers and Redhook declines.

EnSync, Inc. (NYSE American: ESNC), dba EnSync Energy Systems, the leading provider of innovative distributed energy resources (DERs) and business models for residential, commercial and utility installations, and its subsidiary Holu Energy, a developer of DER projects in Hawaii, today announced a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Kona Brewing Company to build a solar-plus-battery storage system at the beer company’s new brewery, under construction in Kailua Kona.

Craft Brew Alliance (CBA) is making good on its promise to innovate in products other than beer, namely low- or no-alcohol drinks. The publicly traded Portland, Oregon-based craft beer company — which makes and markets the Kona Brewing, Widmer Brothers, Redhook, Omission and Square Mile Cider brands, and has partnerships with Appalachian Mountain Brewery, Wynwood Brewing, and Cisco Brewers – has launched what it has dubbed the “pH Experiment.”

Craft Brew Alliance (CBA) this week announced a pair of key leadership changes, including the departure of chief financial officer Joseph Vanderstelt and the appointment of João Paulo Falcão Vieira, vice president of Anheuser-Busch’s (A-B) North American Zone, to its board of directors.

Craft Brew Alliance (CBA) has taken a small step forward in expanding its nearly 3-year-long partnership with Massachusetts-based Cisco Brewers, today announcing plans to rebrand the Redhook pub in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, as an “island-inspired” destination. In a press release, CBA called the decision to convert the Redhook pub “an easy one,” pointing to the fact that the Nantucket-headquartered brewery’s flagship offerings, Whale’s Tale Pale Ale and Grey Lady, have been brewed and packaged at the Portsmouth facility since late 2015.