Restaurant Revitalization Fund Bill Dies in US Senate
A bill to add $40 billion to the depleted Restaurant Revitalization Fund (RRF) failed to secure the requisite 60 votes in the U.S. Senate yesterday.
The bill (S.4008) – the Small Business COVID Relief Act of 2022 – would have provided relief to small businesses affected by pandemic-driven closures including restaurants, breweries, bars, gyms, minor league sports teams and event venues.
It was defeated by a 52-43 vote that broke down along party lines, with most Democrats voting in favor and most Republicans voting against. Three Republicans broke with their party: Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), who co-sponsored the bill, and Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA). Five senators did not vote.
“Local restaurants across the country expected help but the Senate couldn’t finish the job,” Independent Restaurant Coalition (IRC) executive director Erika Polmar said in a press release. “Neighborhood restaurants nationwide have held out hope for this program, selling their homes, cashing out retirement funds, or taking personal loans in an effort to keep their employees working and their doors open.
“We estimate more than half of the 177,300 restaurants waiting for an RRF grant will close in the next few months as a result of Congressional inaction,” she continued
Last month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a different bill (H.R. 3807) to add $42 billion to the RRF, which gave out $28.6 billion in grants to more than 101,000 on-premise establishments last year before it was depleted. It is unlikely, but H.R. 3807 could still come up for a vote in the Senate.
The Brewers Association (BA) worked to ensure breweries, particularly those who derived at least 33% of their revenue from on-site sales, could receive grants from the RRF, BA federal affairs director Katie Marisic told Brewbound. About 1,600 BA members were approved to receive grants, but not all were fulfilled.
“Our members have been great and we’ve had strong outreach on the Hill,” Marisic said in an interview with Brewbound days before the Senate voted on the bill. “We just want to make sure that we can get it across the finish line, but unfortunately, it’s not up to us.”
Marisic noted Congress has been deadlocked on several items recently, such as continued funding for pandemic-related needs and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The bill would have been deficit funded, which made some Republicans leery of advancing it, Nation’s Restaurant News (NRN) reported.
“I think we’ve been talking to restaurant people about this issue; then we talk to the hospital people about needing money,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) told Roll Call earlier this week, cited by NRN. “If you respond to all these – and I think it might be unfair to respond to one, rather than all of them – you could easily have another trillion-dollar package.”
Stone and Sycamore Both ‘Relieved’ Trademark Battle Has Ended
Following the end to their trademark infringement lawsuit last week, both San Diego-based Stone Brewing and Charlotte-based Sycamore Brewing have issued statements expressing relief that the legal skirmish has concluded.
The two craft brewers agreed to the dismissal, without prejudice, of “all claims, counterclaims, causes of action,” and to pay their own attorneys’ fees, according to a “stipulation of dismissal and related relief” filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina.
Both parties also agreed to end the preliminary injunction that Stone was hit with regarding its use of the phrase, and return a $50,000 cash bond posted by Sycamore.
“While we are relieved this case is over, we feel it’s necessary to set the record straight,” Stone CEO Maria Stipp said in a press release. “Sycamore forced Stone to incur hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal expense to defend ourselves and sent our team scrambling to sticker 21,000 boxes of beer in warehouses across the country, taking more than 600 hours of valuable time. We also had to engage the resources of our distributor partners, to whom we are immensely grateful. We complied earnestly with court orders out of respect for trademark protections and the court system.
“As we now know, all of this was because of Sycamore’s baseless trademark claims and opportunism,” she continued. “At the end of the day, the truth came out. We can only hope this story helps prevent similar situations from happening to any other brewer. We are thrilled that Stone (and Sycamore, for that matter) can now turn its attention back to making great beer.”
Sycamore founder and owner Justin Brigham echoed the sentiment that the lawsuit was a distraction from both breweries’ regular operations.
“We absolutely got what we came for, thankfully,” he said in a statement to Brewbound. “At the other side of our lawsuit against Stone, I feel great about what Sycamore accomplished and feel great that it is over. Make no mistake, the entire process was exhausting and quite a drain on time, attention, and resources.
“Without such a disciplined focus on our mission, we might very well have been induced to walk the wrong path; to continue waging a war of attrition against a massive, private equity backed corporation to no foreseeable end. But we did maintain that discipline and focus,” he continued. “Sycamore is in an exciting growth phase and we’re putting peak numbers on the board. That is what matters to us — real growth and real progress. I only wish Stone’s CEO had been willing to chat working, equitable terms at the outset, when I first spoke with her and before Sycamore and Stone ever met in court.”
Boochcraft Attains B-Corp Status
Hard kombucha maker Boochcraft has been certified as a B-Corp (benefit corporation), the company announced.
“We have been at it for six years now selling hard kombucha and over eight years since we first had the idea to start Boochcraft,” co-founder Adam Hiner said in a press release. “Many things have changed since those early days, but one thing remains true: our commitment to doing better for the planet, giving back to the community and doing business in a sustainable way.”
B Corp certification is determined by B Lab, an organization that sets global standards to certify businesses that “demonstrate high social and environmental performance,” “make a legal commitment by changing their corporate governance structure to be accountable to all stakeholders, not just shareholders,” and “exhibit transparency by allowing information about their performance measured against B Lab’s standards.”
Boochcraft attained certification through reaching several “key milestones,” including:
- Composting more than 1 million pounds of fruit scraps annually and donating unused fruit;
- Saving 1,116 gallons of water daily through a water-recapture loop;
- Achieving net-zero emissions at its production facility;
- Creating an environmental management system to reduce waste;
- Paying all employees at least 25% more than minimum wage, matching 401K contributions, adding eight PTO days annually and tying executive goals to the overall score of an employee engagement survey.
Drizly: RTD Growth to Continue This Summer, Led by Tequila-based Offerings
Consumers are most interested in trying tequila-based ready-to-drink canned cocktails (RTDs) this summer over other trending offerings, according to the e-commerce alcohol delivery platform Drizly in its fourth annual Consumer Trend Report.
The report cites an April survey of just over 1,000 legal-drinking-age consumers across 33 states, who had all purchased alcohol over the last 90 days.
Given a list of “emerging categories” within bev-alc, two-in-five respondents (43%) said they are most excited to try tequila-based RTDs, followed by hard iced tea (35%), CBD or cannabis-infused drinks (25%) and orange wine (19%). Orange wine is used in beverages such as Loverboy Sparkling Hard Tea and BeatBox Hard Punch. Other segments included hard kombucha (13%), Soju (11%) and non-alcoholic spirits (9%).
Nearly one-in-five respondents (18%) said they were not interested in trying any of the above.
“Classic cocktails” such as Old Fashioneds and Margaritas were the most popular RTD choices among respondents (62%), followed by vodka-based RTDs (54%), tequila-based (47%), “unique cocktails I haven’t tried before” (43%), and vodka seltzer (37%).
Asked which canned drinks respondents anticipate buying more of in 2022 compared to 2021, the plurality (22%) said RTDs, outpacing hard seltzer (20%). RTDs’ share of Drizly sales increased +400% from 2019 to 2021, ending last year with 2% share, according to the platform.
About one-in-ten respondents said they expect to buy more lager this year (11%), followed by cider (9%), IPAs (9%), ale (8%), hard kombucha (5%), stouts (5%) and sour beer (4%).
Respondents said they were mostly likely to drink RTDs at home (73%), followed by at a party (57%), at a backyard barbeque (57%), at an outdoor activity (47%), and at a beach (39%). About one-third of consumers said they’d drink an RTD at a restaurant (33%) or at a bar (31%), while 18% would be likely to consume one at a wedding.
Ohio Reaches 400th Craft Brewery Milestone
Guernsey Brewhouse, slated to open in mid-July in Cambridge, Ohio, marks the record 400th licensed craft brewery in the Buckeye State, the Ohio Craft Brewers Association (OCBA) announced this week.
There is now “at least one brewery in 72 of Ohio’s 88 counties,” according to the state trade group. Nearly 40% of the 400 breweries opened in the past three years, with an average of 48 new brewery openings a year since 2020 compared to 11 annual closings.
About 4.6 gallons of craft beer is consumed per person in the state, ranking No. 13 in the country, according to the OCBA. The state ranks No. 24 in breweries per capita, “suggesting that there’s still room for growth in the market.” Seventy known breweries are in planning in the state, according to the association.
In 2020, Ohio craft breweries contributed more than $880 million to the state’s economy, and provided nearly 8,300 jobs.
“While a single macrobrewery can produce 10-15 times the combined barrelage of all 400 of the state’s breweries in a single year, they employ a small fraction of Ohioans compared to those working at our independent breweries,” OCBA noted.
Additionally, Ohio craft breweries donated nearly $2 million and more than 8,000 volunteer hours to local nonprofits in 2020, “despite revenue losses caused by the [COVID-19] pandemic.”
Teamsters Express Disappointment in Treasury Competition Report
In March, Greg Nowak, director of the Brewery and Soft Drink Workers Conference, sent a letter to U.S. Department of the Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, on behalf of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Politico reported Thursday.
The letter, dated March 21, detailed the Teamsters’ concerns regarding the Treasury’s 64-page report, published this past February, on the state of competition in beer, wine and spirits.
“Given the Treasury report’s length and detail, we were disappointed to see no acknowledgement or description of the beer industry’s strong connection to union workers,” Nowak wrote. “The Treasury report contains recommendations that attempt to redistribute market share to non-union business owners.
“Indeed, the Treasury report stands out among all Biden Administration policy pronouncements across many Cabinet departments and agencies in that it fails to acknowledge the important contributions of labor unions in this sector,” Nowak continued.
The letter cited remarks from Tim Wu, an advisor from the White House National Economic Council, “while speaking recently about competition,” in which Wu acknowledged that while the craft beer industry is “not perfect,” it remains an example of “how the U.S. economy can be.”
Wu shared similar remarks when speaking to industry members at the Brewers Association’s (BA’s) Craft Brewers Conference in Minneapolis, last month. He described the craft industry as “extremely innovative and devoted” and “a model for how the U.S. economy should be.”
“We ask once again that the Administration consult the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in any decisions related to the beer industry that could have a negative impact on our hard-working members,” Nowak wrote. “We hope you will be cautious in developing any new regulations in this regard, as this is already a highly regulated industry at both the state and federal level.”
President Joe Biden has been vocal in his support for unions, and in October, Marty Walsh, labor secretary and former union leader, called Biden’s administration “the most pro-union, pro-worker administration in our lifetime.”
Spencer Brewery Listed for Auction
The brewing and bottling facility of Spencer Brewery, the only Trappist brewery in the U.S., has been listed for auction.
The monks of Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts, announced via Facebook last week that they would cease operations of their 30,000 sq. ft. brewery, following the sale of existing inventory.
The online-only auction will open Thursday, June 23 at 10 a.m. ET, according to the listing. Equipment for sale includes a 50-barrel brewing system, a 7-station bottling line, eight 4,400 gallon fermentation tanks, and several 53-gallon whiskey barrels. Bidding for individual equipment pieces is now open.
Beer Prices at PGA Championship Draw Criticism from Fans and Players
Attention was drawn to beer prices at the PGA Championship at Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Southern Hills Country Club, following reporting from Golfweek.
A 25 oz. can of Michelob Ultra was priced at $18/can, while a same-size Stella Artois was $19. Professional golfer and 2017 PGA champion Justin Thomas responded to the report on Twitter, calling on the PGA to “treat the fans better than that.”
$18(!!!!!!) for a beer… uhhhh what. Gotta treat the fans better than that! 🤦🏽♂️ https://t.co/7DeyC7WTJE
— Justin Thomas (@JustinThomas34) May 17, 2022
When one Twitter user suggested that the prices may go towards paying the “over $9 million” up for grabs in the golf competition, Thomas said “if the concession stands were factored into our purse, we would be playing for $15 million.”
In response to the criticism, Kerry Haigh, chief championships officer for PGA of America, said “the pricing of the product is sort of comparable to stadium events,” and that the company is “comfortable with where we are.” He added that spectators are also “able to drink non-alcoholic beverages and as much food as they want,” which is included in their ticket price.