Craft Brew Alliance (CBA) has announced its preliminary financial results for 2014, highlighting double-digit net sales growth across the company’s core family of brands including Kona, Widmer Brothers, Redhook and Omission. According to a release from the company, net sales increased 12 percent in 2014, and exceeded $200 million. Shipments grew 10 percent, a 6 percent increase over the year prior. Depletions, meanwhile, grew 7 percent despite an approximate 25 percent reduction in SKUs.
Surf Brewery, a small commercial craft brewery, open since 2011, with an onsite tasting room and homebrew shop, announced that they are releasing their second barrel aged beer for sale at the brewery on Valentine’s Day, Saturday, February 14. For the true ‘beer lover’, a release party from 5-8pm, complete with free tasting of the new beer, bottle discount and LIVE music.
Ryan Krill’s experience with beer in college consisted largely not of brewing it, but of drinking it out of a used cleat in a strange post-rugby game tradition. And in grad school, he cracked a bathtub in a home-brew experiment gone wrong. But after graduation, and after making a name for himself in Manhattan’s finance and real estate development sectors, he took a leap of faith. Ryan teamed up with Villanova University buddy Chris Henke, tester of commercial satellites, and his own father, a retired pharmaceutical executive named Bob, to start a brewery.
San Francisco’s 21st Amendment Brewery has announced plans to expand distribution to Chicago this spring, sales director Ted Whitney told Brewbound. “We’ll be sitting down to plan the launch in the next few weeks and we expect this to be an epic beer landing,” he said. The company is currently in the process of finalizing its wholesaler partnerships, though it would not specify what distributors it’s teaming up with.
U.S. Rep Steve Womack (R-Ark.) yesterday introduced the latest version of a Beer Institute-backed bill that would lower excise taxes on all brewers and beer importers. The bipartisan Fair Brewers Excise and Economic Relief Act (Fair BEER Act), which was introduced into the House of Representatives this morning, is co-sponsored by Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.) and differs from previous bills by creating a new scaled tax structure that would lower the per barrel tax rate for all brewers and importers of all sizes.
Apricadabra! Say the magic word and enjoy a magic moment when you savor Apricadabra Apricot Wheat Ale, the refreshing new spring seasonal beer from the Stevens Point Brewery.
Home may be where the heart is, but the Utah Brewers Cooperative is beginning to feel the love elsewhere. In the 14 states where it distributes outside of its home market, the company, comprised of Wasatch Brewery and Squatters Craft Beers, saw 2014 sales surge by 73 percent. That figure towers over the 11 percent growth that the company achieved in Utah. Squatters founder Peter Cole says the difference is due to the company’s already strong foothold in the state.
Following the reintroduction of the Small Brewer Reinvestment and Expanding Workforce Act (Small BREW Act) in the House of Representatives, the Brewers Association—the not-for-profit trade association dedicated to small and independent American brewers—announced the Senate companion bill, S. 375, has been reintroduced by Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Senator Susan Collins (R-Me.).
Talk about timing. Less than two weeks after Seattle’s Elysian Brewing sold to Anheuser-Busch InBev, fellow Washington-based craft brewery No-Li Brewhouse today announced the release of its first six-pack offering, “Poser.” Here’s the dilemma: Elysian makes a popular beer, Loser, with the tagline “corporate beer still sucks.” When the deal with A-B was announced, a few slighted Elysian fans (and amateur graphic designers) immediately got to work, “trolling” the brewery’s Facebook page with photoshopped versions of the label that had replaced the “L” with a “P.”
Four Pennsylvania breweries have combined their resources to create the Lake Erie Ale Trail – a literal map for those curious about visiting Erie breweries and exploring their award-winning brews. Envisioned and supported byVisitErie, the Lake Erie Ale Trail will serve to promote Erie’s four breweries that are within the City’s limits, and will be promoted throughout the greater Lake Erie Region.
Paulaner USA, the U.S. importer of the legendary Paulaner Brewery portfolio and other premium beverage alcohol brands, will launch new packaging artwork along with a unique mnemonic logo on all secondary packaging that clearly defines its German position as the leading Hefe-Weizen brew to the U.S. market. The new design is aimed to communicate this positioning and clearly define the German brew as the world’s best Hefe-Weizen to American beer connoisseurs.
Today, Anchor Brewing Company announces the opening of a beer garden at The Yard at Mission Rock, an 18,000-square-foot pop-up food and retail village.
