There’s a difference between being coastal and being on the coast. That’s a difference that Pelican Brewing has long exploited, as visitors to its beachside pub and brewery in Pacific City, Ore. can dig their toes in the sand, pint in hand, without straying from the premises. In a state that needs no help selling itself as a craft beer destination, Pelican’s immaculate location has for years given the company a leg to stand on that was uniquely its own.
You’d more likely come across a stone bust of Sam Calagione than one bearing the visage of Plato at World of Beer’s recently launched eponymous school. Well, you would if the school had a physical location, anyway. To build the “Ultimate Beer Quiz,” World of Beer tapped some of the biggest names in craft beer, asking them to help create a series of online quizzes aimed at educating beer consumers.
As part of its continued effort to realign its California distribution network, Knee Deep Brewing will now be sold by DBI Beverage of Sacramento throughout the region. “This is the final step in the reorganization of our distribution network in Northern California,” said Jerry Moore, Knee Deep CEO, in a news release.
Aiming to expedite its national expansion effort, Fireman’s Brew has released yet another private stock offering, this time an equity sale available to investors outside of California. Fireman’s Brew, which is based in Los Angeles, Calif., aims to sell more than 4.5 million shares of ‘Flash Seed Preferred stock,’ at $1.249 per share, through FlashFunders, an online equity-funding platform that connects early stage companies with investors across the globe.
Every champion golfer comes to The Brew Hub imbued with a towering source of inspiration. It starts as a solitary journey, but it is one that no golfer, if he dreams of becoming a craft brewer, makes alone. For Keegan Bradley, a boy from Woodstock, VT., it was a lager, brewed with the comforting guidance of the legendary Dr. Paul Farnsworth.
Here’s the good news: Brewbound pored over the latest IRI spreadsheet so you didn’t have to. Here’s the bad news (if you can even call it that): Craft growth actually slowed during the latest four-week period, ending October 5, 2014.
The statement “I’m going blond” doesn’t usually imply the long term. Maybe a brunette seeks brief, superficial change to counter the monotony of stylistic routine. Perhaps she just wants to look like Kim Novak. Or Lance Bass. But no matter the motive, going blond is typically seen as something temporary. It remains to be seen if the beer industry should consider Guinness’ recent release of Guinness Blonde American Lager as an act of whimsy.
How do you earn wholesaler attention if you’re a small craft beer brand trying to compete in today’s crowded marketplace? “Elbow grease and shoe leather,” says John Bryant, a partner at No-Li Brewhouse, based in Spokane, Washington. Make that axel grease. Bryant will put about 50,000 miles on his truck this year, driving all over the Pacific Northwest to hand-sell his company’s portfolio.
Based on recent sales data, one might deduce that on-premise consumption of craft beer is growing at the expense of premium light options. Taking a closer look at third quarter numbers, however, it appears that beer sales in restaurants and bars are experiencing a lull across the category. On-premise volume sales of premium light beer dipped by 1.9 percent through the first 10 months of 2014, as compared to the same time period in the previous year.
When Yuengling announced it would be launching into Massachusetts and Rhode Island earlier this year, Narragansett Beer president Mark Hellendrung expected sales to take a hit. The question was whether it would sink the brand. Hellendrung feared that sales of his company’s flagship lager — which makes up about 75 percent of ‘Gansett’s total production — would decline.
Cigar City’s search for a second production facility took the company to the Carolinas this week. As reported this morning by the Citizen Times, Joey Redner, founder of the Florida-based craft brewery, has been scouting locations in Western North Carolina as well as in Upstate South Carolina, in hopes of finding a place to build a new brewery comparable in size to its flagship facility in Tampa.
Continuing to build out a footprint on the eastern half of the country, Deschutes Brewery has announced plans to expand distribution throughout Washington D.C. and northern Virginia early next month. The brewery, headquartered out of Bend, Ore., has signed agreements with Premium Distributors — part of the Reyes Beverage Group — in both markets.
Craft brewers from all over the country are putting their weight behind an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposal that would extend the federal government’s power to enforce the Clean Water Act. In total, 40 craft brewers have teamed up with the Natural Resources Defense Council to push for the proposed rule, which aims to clarify the EPA’s regulation parameters relating to small bodies of water.
The pay-to-play debate has erupted again, this time on twitter. Dan Paquette, the co-founder of Boston’s Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project took to the social media platform at 12:53 A.M. to complain about what he — and many other brewers — call the dirty habit of pay-to-play — under-the-table transactions, where brewers or wholesalers offer cash and incentives to retailers and bar owners in exchange for guaranteed placement.
