Anheuser-Busch InBev’s Brewers Collective craft division is betting big on craft beer’s most popular style — the IPA — in 2020. Brewers Collective president Marcelo “Mika” Michaelis told Brewbound that the world’s largest beer company is making a multi-million dollar investment behind a new low-alcohol, low-calorie IPA from Chicago’s Goose Island, as well as a hazy IPA from from Seattle’s Elysian Brewing.
Cleveland’s Great Lakes Brewing Co. has appointed long-time beer and spirits executive Mark King as its next CEO. King, who most recently served as president of BeatBox Beverages and co-founded Austin Eastciders in 2013, supplants Bill Boor, who unexpectedly exited the 31-year-old, Ohio-headquartered craft brewery after four years in April to become the CEO of Phoenix, Arizona-based Cavco Industries, which makes manufactured housing.
Citing increased competition in a crowded marketplace, Boulder Beer Company announced today that it would cease distribution and focus on its brewpub business.
As beer companies look to non-beer products such as hard seltzer to buoy their businesses, many are beginning to reimagine themselves as craft beverage companies. “If you can think as a beverage company, there’s so much more whitespace that you can play in,” CANarchy Craft Brewing Collective president Matt Fraser shared during Brewbound’s final Brew Talks meetup of 2019.
About 150 job seekers turned out Tuesday evening for the first-ever Hop Forward Career Fair, a networking event held at Mass Bay Brewing’s Harpoon Brewery in Boston’s Seaport District, with the goal of attracting candidates from under-represented communities into the craft beer industry.
About 60,000 people attended last week’s Great American Beer Festival in Denver, but the 2019 edition of national trade group the Brewers Association’s (BA) largest consumer-facing event may mark the last in which beer is the only featured alcoholic beverage.
The Reyes Beverage Group, the largest beer wholesaler in the U.S., announced today its third California wholesaler acquisition of the year, with the planned purchase of W.A. Thompson. The acquisition of Bakersfield-based W.A. Thompson will add 7.1 million case equivalents and 2,500 accounts to Reyes subsidiary Harbor Distributing, according to a press release. The deal is expected to close in early December.
Although the pace of dealmaking among breweries has slowed in recent years, consolidation in the middle tier continues, as wholesalers in New York and Colorado recently struck deals. In New York, Buffalo-based Certo Brothers Distributing has sold to Wright Beverage, and in Colorado, RMC Distributing announced Friday that it had sold to KEG 1.
Constellation Brands has once again promoted Mallika Monteiro. Last Friday, the New York-headquartered maker of Mexican import brands Corona, Modelo and Pacifico appointed Monteiro as executive vice president and chief growth and strategy officer. Meanwhile, Ceria Beverages, which makes THC-infused, non-alcoholic beers, has appointed Greg Miller as its first vice president of business development.
Stone Brewing’s Arrogant Consortia has announced the launch of Jägermeister Arrogant Bastard Ale, an American strong ale brewed in collaboration with the makers of Jägermeister. Meanwhile, New Belgium Brewing Company and High Brew Coffee are collaborating on new coffee beer. And Superfluid Supply Company, a new subsidiary of Short’s Brewing, today announced the release of Beaches Hard Seltzer.
After three decades, Odell Brewing’s founders — Wynne, Doug and Corkie Odell — plan to exit the brewery’s day-to-day operations starting in January 2020, as part of a planned leadership transition. The employee-owned, Fort Collins, Colorado-headquartered craft brewery will turn to chief sales and marketing officer Eric “Smitty” Smith as its next chief executive officer.
Constellation Brands will enter the booming hard seltzer category next spring with a Corona branded spiked seltzer, CEO Bill Newlands said during the company’s second-quarter earnings call Thursday.
Three Colorado breweries — Renegade Brewing, Good River Beer and Rocky Mountain Sector — have merged to create the Brewer’s Co-Hop, a new business venture that will share a production facility and back-of-house resources in Denver.
Crook & Marker will launch four new, sugar-free hard sodas in two test markets this month, with plans to take the line national early next year. The products will initially be available in off-premise retailers in Wisconsin and Montana.
