San Diego’s Modern Times Beer Company is heading north to Beervana. The southern California craft brewery today announced plans to takeover what will soon be the former Commons Brewery location in the Buckman neighborhood of Portland, Oregon.

In the latest Press Clips: Magnolia founder discusses brewery sale; Stone’s Berlin business profiled; Modern Times inches closer to Encinitas taproom; Guinness hires head brewer for Maryland facility; and more.

Modern Times Beer Co. today announced the implementation of an employee stock option plan (ESOP), giving workers a minority ownership stake in the company. In order to form the ESOP, Modern Times repurchased 30 percent of its total equity from 11 silent investors via a bank loan from Comerica and cash from the company.

Production at 25 of the top 50 Brewers Association-defined craft breweries didn’t grow last year, according new data released today by the trade organization.

Cans of Nitro Monsters’ Park Aged in Bourbon Barrels with Coffee are now officially a thing. Brace your face for 12 glorious ounces of decadent, coffee-laden, nitrogenated radness.

Caffeinated beer-magic, Flavordome’s 3rd anniversary, and the 2nd annual Festival of Funk Centaur Gardens–our April canned special release IPA–is hitting Brown Paper Tickets on Monday at 10AM along with some seriously incredible bottles, including two dome-detonating collabs and barrel-aged variants of Monsters’ Park and Devil’s Teeth.

March’s 16oz special release can is on its way, and we are super psyched about it. It’s called Effective Dreams IPA, and it’ll be a collaboration brew with the folks at Great Notion Brewing in Portland.

Modern Times is looking for balance in 2017. “We’re really growing in all directions,” CEO and founder Jacob McKean told Brewbound via e-mail. “The last two years we’ve had enormous growth in our wholesale business, so now it’s time to add some tasting rooms. Our business model works extremely well for us; we’re just focused on scaling it at a reasonable rate.”

GDI (General Distributors Inc.) is proud to announce Modern Times Beer as their newest supplier partner.

Beginning Sunday, Goose Island will temporarily close its original Chicago brewpub on Clybourn Avenue to undergo a five-month renovation, according to a report from the Chicago Tribune.

In this week’s edition of press clips: Bart Watson blogs about the craft slowdown; Modern Times Beer reveals an Anaheim brewery project and Golden Eagle announces an Illinois acquisition.

For the first time in eight years, Harpoon Brewery has expanded its distribution footprint. The Boston-based craft brewery announced Monday a pair of deals to put its beer into Minnesota and Wisconsin.

As conglomerates scoop up more craft breweries, what are the ramifications for those who don’t sell out? That’s what a quartet of well-known craft brewery figureheads tried to address last week during a panel discussion at the 2016 Great American Beer Festival.

Tweet Away, California Brewers At last, California-based beverage alcohol producers will be able to encourage purchasing via twitter and other social media platforms. Gov. Jerry Brown last week signed Assembly Bill 780, which enables brewers, distillers and vintners to identify retailers of their products on social media, according to the San Francisco Business Times. The… Read more »