“Since launching Ekos Brewmaster in April 2014, we’ve seen an amazing response from the craft beer community,”said Greg Forehand, CEO of Ekos. “Over the past eight months we’ve partnered with more than 150 production breweries and are on track to top 400 breweries using the system by the end of 2015. Ekos Brewmaster was designed to suit craft breweries of all sizes, and we are now seeing that vision realized. With breweries ranging from nano-sized startups to well-established breweries with regional distribution, we are finding that the flexibility and affordability of the system gives every craft brewery an option to manage their day-to-day operations.”
Cape May Brewing Company – the south Jersey start-up founded in 2011 by two college buddies with a homemade brew system and a dream – was this week honored three times by the Best of Craft Beer Awards.
Last Friday’s announcement that Anheuser-Busch InBev would acquire Seattle’s beloved Elysian Brewing caught many in the industry by surprise. How could a company that celebrated its independence with a beer carrying the tagline “corporate beer still sucks” — a name derived from as anti-as-they-come-band Nirvana — sell to the one company so many of its consumers refuse to support? That’s something that even its founder and brewer, Dick Cantwell, a stalwart member of the Brewers Association, is wondering.
For many small breweries, taprooms provide an imperative part of the business equation, inventing additional revenue streams while creating invaluable marketing opportunities. In fact, there has been an industry-wide recognition of that prospect, according to Bart Watson, chief economist of the Brewers Association, who argues that the manufacturer/taproom has even superseded the brewpub as a preferred business model.
In response to growing consumer demand and appreciation for a crisp-tasting lager beer, Victory Brewing Company (Victory) is excited to share their best-kept secret with full distribution of Victory Helles Lager to 35 states. Long held as an extremely popular favorite in the Philadelphia region because of the area’s longtime love affair with lagers, Victory Helles Lager is made in traditional German style creating a full-bodied golden brew with unsurpassed balanced flavors.
This spring semester, students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison will have a new opportunity – and given its uniqueness and subject matter, there’s a good chance it will fill up in record time! The University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences and Wisconsin Brewing Company are partnering to teach a Fermented Foods & Beverage laboratory class with real world applications.
The first ever Harrisburg Beer Week will run April 24 through May 2, 2015 throughout the greater Harrisburg area. The event, the brainchild of local craft beer blogger Tierney Pomone of Stouts and Stilettos, is organized by four local women.
Temperance Beer Company, Evanston’s original brewery, will release its first bottled beer on Saturday, January 31, at noon. After canning three beers beginning last year, including the award-winning Gatecrasher English-Style IPA, Temperance is bottling an extremely limited number of twenty-two-ounce bottles of Barrel-Aged Might Meets Right Imperial Stout.
Although U.S. growers planted an additional 3,600 acres of hops in 2014, the yields dropped by 4.79 percent. An unseasonably hot July in the Pacific Northwest resulted in lighter cones and yields in some varieties that were down as much as 40 percent, said Douglas MacKinnon, CEO of 47 Hops, an international hops brokerage firm in Yakima, Wash.
As America celebrates the 80th anniversary of enjoying beer in a can – one of the country’s greatest advances, the Beer Institute, the trade association representing America’s brewers, beer importers and suppliers, and the Can Manufacturers Institute, the national trade association of the metal can manufacturing industry, celebrate with them. The first beer can was sold in Richmond, Virginia, on January 24, 1935.
Childhood memories in an adult beverage: Steamworks Brewing Co. will serve up a special “S’more Firkin” for its January-February offering at the brewpub and Purgatory at Durango Mountain Resort (DMR).
Beer wholesalers of Florida have voiced mixed feelings with regards to a sweeping, multi-pronged bill that would, if passed, overhaul how the state’s beer industry is regulated. As Brewbound reported last week, House Bill 107, as written, would revamp the inner-workings of franchise agreements, legalize limited self-distribution, clarify brewery retail rights, and put an end to the ongoing growler debate by legalizing 64 oz. containers.
In an effort to continue carving out coveted shelf space in an overcrowded craft beer segment, MillerCoors, via its Tenth and Blake craft and import division, will introduce a new year-round product: Blue Moon White IPA. It’s the first year-round product that Blue Moon Brewing Company has rolled out since 2012, when it introduced Farmhouse Red, a brand featured in the company’s “Expressionist Collection.”
New Belgium Brewing is now accepting film submissions for its 2015 Clips Beer & Film Tour. Selected films will travel to about 20 cities across the U.S., starting in May; the complete tour schedule is still being finalized. This year marks the sixth year of the Clips Beer & Film Tour; a beer-toting, film-traveling, non-profit-benefitting show that travels coast-to-coast and brings communities together to enjoy esoteric beers, while benefitting local organizations.
