Top Features

A year and a half after its sale to Tilray Brands, energy seltzer brand HiBall is returning to retail with a launch in Whole Foods Market stores this spring.

TailGate Brewery founder and owner Wesley Keegan does not advise that other brewers mimic his Nashville-based brewery’s portfolio strategy, simply because it doesn’t make much sense. Throughout TailGate’s decade in operation, its flagship offerings have been a peanut butter milk stout and an orange wheat beer, neither of which were created with the goal of becoming the brewery’s lead style.

After more than a decade of investing in emerging spirits and adult non-alc brands, Diageo confirmed earlier this month that its venture arm Distill Ventures will cease bringing new brands into its portfolio. What does the wind-down signal for the spirits group and does it say something about the larger spirits industry?

Youth soccer games aren’t just a way to get the family outside and to mingle with neighbors – they are also a great place to meet a future business partner. At least, that was the case for Luis Espinoza and Craig Panzer, the founders of Roundhead Brewing, Massachusetts’ first Latino-owned brewery, located in Boston’s Hyde Park neighborhood.

Brewers Association-defined craft beer recorded a -4% decline in packaged volume in 2024, BA staff economist Matt Gacioch reported this week in the trade group’s annual packaging report.

Allagash Brewing will celebrate its 30th anniversary this summer, and founder Rob Tod knows where he’ll be and what he’ll be drinking on the brewery’s birthday, July 1 – an Allagash White at the Great Lost Bear, the taphouse that served the first pint of White in Portland, Maine.

St. Patrick’s Day weekend wasn’t necessarily lucky for purveyors of draft beer, according to on-premise data firm BeerBoard, which published its annual recap of bev-alc performance at bars and restaurants during the holiday.

The origin story of Oregon-based 2 Towns Ciderhouse is very similar to the humble beginnings of many craft brewers: childhood friends with a passion for the craft, and a basement. 15 years later, founders Aaron Sarnoff-Wood and Lee Larsen have grown the company to be the second largest cider brand in grocery nationwide.

More Minute Maid Spiked ready-to-drink (RTD) options are on the way from Coca-Cola’s “firewalled” bev-alc subsidiary, Red Tree Beverages.

The total beer industry ended 2024 in the red, but New England remains a positive beacon, as the region continues to buck trends, Bump Williams Consulting president Dave Williams highlighted earlier this month during a presentation at the New England Craft Brew Summit in Portland, Maine.

Longtime lead lobbyist Katie Marisic has exited the Brewers Association (BA), where she was senior director of federal affairs. Marisic represented craft brewers’ voices and the BA in Washington, D.C. for a decade.

PepsiCo announced this morning it has entered a definitive agreement to acquire Poppi for $1.95 billion, officially bringing the CSD giant into the next gen functional soda set.

Adult beverage consumers can now party like Willie Nelson. The country music star and his wellness enterprise partner Long Play, Inc. have partnered with California-based bev-alc maker JuneShine Brands to launch Willie’s Remedy+, a non-alcoholic (NA), intoxicating hemp-based “social tonic.”

Dealing with droughts is part of life in California, but an extension to the state’s self-imposed ban on hemp-derived THC drinks looks set to further stress an already reeling industry. Prior to their scheduled expiration this month, California’s Department of Public Health extended a six-month ban on “intoxicating hemp products” imposed in September for another three months. Now set to expire on June 24, the emergency measure can be readopted only one more time, according to California law.