We learned a valuable lesson during our recent Brew Talks event in San Diego: if you give three bar owners enough beer and ask them about the local beer scene, duck and cover. The hour-long conversation featured plenty of diatribes about competing with brewery tasting rooms, increasingly difficult buying decisions, escalating beer prices and the importance of strengthening relationships with craft suppliers.
Despite South Carolina’s passage of the “Stone Bill,” the Palmetto State is no longer being considered as a location for Stone Brewing Co.’s planned East Coast facility. First reported by GSA Business, Stone, the country’s 10th largest craft brewery’s decision to look elsewhere was due to “logistical and geographic” reasons.
The Brewers Association (BA) today reported mid-year growth for the country’s small and independent craft brewers. According to the latest data, craft beer production is up 18 percent through the first six months of 2014. Through June, BA-defined craft brewers have sold about 10.6 million barrels of beer, up from 9 million barrels in 2013, the BA said.
Earlier this week, Green Flash Brewing announced a “handshake agreement” with St-Feuillien whereby the Belgium-based brewery would produce, bottle and ship West Coast IPA for broader distribution throughout Europe. In an interview with Brewbound, Green Flash co-founder Mike Hinkley said he wasn’t sure how to exactly define the new partnership.
Reyes Beverage Group today announced it has hired former Firestone Walker vice president of sales Steve Almaraz as its new craft category development director. In the newly created position, Almaraz will be focused on “improving the company’s capabilities against craft beer sales.”
Add Heavy Seas Beer to the neverending list of craft breweries that are expanding production capabilities. The Baltimore, Md.-based beer company has secured $6 million in bank financing to install a new 60-barrel, 5-vessel brewhouse and ultimately grow its production capacity by 250 percent. According to a press release, the expansion project — which will… Read more »
Colorado’s Left Hand Brewing Company is once again expanding its distribution footprint and will re-enter Iowa in August. The company, which temporarily left the state in 2011 due to capacity constraints, has signed a wholesale agreement with Johnson Brothers of Iowa.
Green Flash Brewing today announced a unique brewing partnership with Belgium-based St-Feuillien. According to a press statement, the two breweries have made a “handshake agreement,” whereby St-Feuillien will brew, bottle and ship Green Flash’s flagship West Coast IPA for broader distribution throughout Europe.
The country’s tenth largest craft brewery, Stone Brewing Co., today announced plans to build a new $25 million brewery in Berlin. The San Diego-based craft brewery said it plans to open a production brewery and “expansive destination restaurant” in Germany’s capital city by early 2016.
Cigar City is about to set sail on Carnival Cruise Lines. Beginning this week, two canned offerings from the Tampa, Fla.-based craft brewery will be available on 13 Florida-based ships sailing to the Caribbean, Mexico and The Bahamas.
There are now more than 3,000 breweries in the U.S., according to Bart Watson, the Brewers Association’s (BA) staff economist. Through the end of June, the BA counted 3,040 breweries, which marks the first time the U.S. has crossed the 3,000-brewery threshold since the 1870s. Watson, who announced the statistics on the trade group’s blog… Read more »
Effective Aug. 1, Boston’s Harpoon Brewery will be minority owned by its employees. The company today announced that it has transferred 48 percent of the company’s shares into an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) after purchasing those shares back from six of its eight existing shareholders.
One year after ditching a contract brewing business model for a shiny new brewing facility in Upstate New York, Shmaltz Brewing has grown its business nearly 50 percent. The company, which produces and markets a line of craft beers with tongue-in-cheek Jewish themes, had been producing its beers under contract for 17 years when it… Read more »
In Naturalis Historia, Vol. VI CB, Pliny the Elder wrote, “In these matters, the only certainty is that nothing is certain.” How ironic then, that Russian River Brewing Co.’s famed imperial IPA, named after the abovementioned Roman philosopher, has by all accounts been certainty in a bottle for several years.
