At this point, craft brewers are probably sick of reading the words “trademark dispute” in a headline. Thankfully, we’ve got an opportunity to discuss the topic – and the increasing importance of performing proper trademark due-diligence before launching new products — in a far less contentious way
The Brewers Association and the Beer Institute issued a joint statement this afternoon in support of a new bill that would restructure the federal excise tax rate on beer, creating a unified front to take on an issue that has for years divided the beer industry’s two leading advocacy groups.
Lagunitas is planning another brewery, this time in Southern California. Brewery founder Tony Magee took to Twitter late last night to make the big reveal, detailing plans for the company’s third brewing facility, which will be located in Azusa, Calif., just 25 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.
After eight months of self-distributing its products, a change in Kentucky law has forced a Cincinnati, OH-based beer company to find a local wholesaler. While Rhinegeist Brewery-owned Riverghost Distributing won’t be getting out of the wholesaling business altogether, it has sold the distribution rights to its parent company’s fast-growing beer brand to rival Heidelberg Distributing.
In an effort to support the growth of both its thriving and struggling brands, Anheuser-Busch InBev today announced it will invest more than $1.7 billion in its U.S. brewing, agriculture, packaging and distributing operations by 2018.
Woodchuck wants consumers to know that its cider comes from a real cidery, and it’s spending more than $2 million to drive the message home. In its first ever-advertising campaign, entitled “Why Woodchuck,” the company squares its sights on competition from large beer companies like Anheuser-Busch InBev, MillerCoors and even Boston Beer, all of which have rolled out their own cider offerings in recent years and cut deep into Woodchuck’s share of the small but fast-growing cider market.
The founding partners of La Jolla Brewing, a small brewpub in the San Diego area, are gearing up to launch a new contract brewing venture in the city. Slated to open in December, Fighter Town Brewing LLC plans to work with and provide capacity to local, national, and international breweries that are short on space and high on demand.
Northwest hop acreage increased 16 percent in 2015, as nearly 44,000 acres have been strung for harvest across Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Broken down by state, Washington strung 32,205 acres for harvest this year, accounting for 73 percent of total hops acreage across the United States.
Just in time for Father’s Day, Illinois-based Small Town Brewery today announced the nationwide rollout of its signature Not Your Father’s Root Beer line of soda-inspired beers. In a press statement, the company said it signed a distribution agreement with Pabst Brewing Company, which began selling the product earlier this year. Specific terms of the arrangement were not disclosed and representatives from both Pabst and Small Town Brewery were unavailable for comment.
Alcoholic beverage suppliers don’t have to reinvent the wheel to provide top tier national account and category development services. On the contrary, emphasizing the fundamentals should be enough to land a supplier in the good graces of their on-premise partners. That’s the takeaway from the latest CM Profit Group survey, in which nearly 70 operators of 150 bars and restaurants responded.
Idle Hands Craft Ales, a small Boston-area microbrewery that got its start on a 1 ½ barrel nano-brewing system in 2011, today announced it has been forced to vacate its facility in Everett, MA. Idle Hands’ current space sits just blocks from the proposed site of a new $1.3 billion Wynn Everett resort and casino. In order to make room for a construction access road, Idle Hands and a handful of small businesses must be out by June 30.
With an expansion to its North Carolina brewing facility underway, Oskar Blues is continuing to grow its footprint throughout the eastern half of the U.S. The company, which just last week revealed plans to increase production capacity at its Brevard outpost, has announced plans to add distribution in West Virginia and Arkansas.
Scottish craft beer company BrewDog has unveiled plans to establish a U.S. beachhead, last week announcing that Columbus, Ohio, will become the company’s stateside brewing headquarters. On its blog, BrewDog wrote that it has “provisionally agreed” to acquire 42 acres of land in Columbus and said it intends to build a 100,000 sq. ft. brewery complete with a 100-barrel brewhouse, canning machine and bottling line to serve markets across the U.S.
After years of debate over how to best reduce the federal excise tax rate on brewers, two of the beer industry’s leading organizations — the Brewers Association and the Beer Institute — have finally come together in support of a single bill. At a press conference hosted at Hopworks Urban Brewery in Portland, Ore. on Friday, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) addressed industry and media members and unveiled the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act, a comprehensive tax reform bill aimed at modernizing “outdated regulations” imposed on craft brewers and other alcoholic beverage manufacturers.
