Firestone Walker chief sales officer David Macon stepped down last week after eight years with the Paso Robles, California-headquartered craft brewery.

2022 will be a “make or break year for a number” of craft brewers, Brewers Association chief economist Bart Watson shared during a press conference Tuesday to discuss the 2021 production numbers and top 50 breweries list.

Societe Brewing is expanding its distribution footprint into Northern California, beginning April 11. The San Diego, California-based brewery now distributes in all key California markets through “100% independent distributors,” Societe founder and CEO Doug Constantiner announced Monday during the California Craft Brewers Association (CCBA) Members Conference.

The Brewers Association (BA) also released its 2021 rankings of the top 50 craft breweries by sales volume, in addition to sharing that craft brewer volumes increased by +8% last year.

A year after recording the first production decline of the modern era, U.S. craft brewers were back in black in 2021. The Brewers Association shared that production at U.S. craft brewers who meet its craft brewer definition collectively increased production +8%, to an estimated 24.8 million barrels of beer in 2021.

The Sands family, the largest shareholder of Constellation Brands stock, has proposed declassifying the company’s common stock and transitioning to a single-class common stock structure.

BrewDog has rejected a proposal from Hand & Heart, the workplace consulting firm that was attempting to manage a reconciliation program between the Scottish craft brewer and current and former employees who felt wronged by its allegedly toxic work environment.

Anthony Spina and Matt Sievers – who’ve worked on brands such as Mark Anthony Brands’ White Claw and Mike’s Hard Lemonade and Pabst Blue Ribbon – have launched their own endeavor: Primer Electrolyte Charged Hard Seltzers.

San Diego-headquartered JuneShine released its first commercial campaign today, promoting its recently launched ready-to-drink, spirits-based canned cocktails with the tagline of “Dodge the Sugar.” Beer buyers’ behavior has “continued to revert to pre-pandemic trends” for the third consecutive month, according to the National Beer Wholesalers Association’s (NBWA) March Beer Purchasers’ Index (BPI).

Off-premise dollar sales of ready-to-drink canned cocktails (RTDs) and hard seltzers have more than doubled in the past three years, increasing +155% since 2019 (through January 8, 2022), according to NielsenIQ data, shared by the Beer Institute’s (BI) VP of research Danelle Kosmal during a webinar Thursday.

Delivery service Gopuff has laid off hundreds of employees as it aims to cut costs, the company confirmed today. Former employees claimed the number was more than 1,000.

While beer price increases have remained below national inflation, nearly two-thirds of consumers plan to cut back on alcohol spending due to inflation, according to a recent Harris Poll survey commissioned by the Beer Institute (BI) shared by BI VP of research Danelle Kosmal during a webinar Thursday.

What propelled the craft beer industry to nearly 9,000 breweries over several decades isn’t volume growth, distribution expansion or heaps of medals, but the stories of its people, according to Maine Beer Company co-founder Dan Kleban. Kleban delivered a keynote address Thursday at the New England Brew Summit, hosted by the Maine Brewers’ Guild centered on the theme of standing out in a crowded marketplace.

A jury awarded Stone Brewing $56 million in its trademark infringement lawsuit against Molson Coors for its Keystone Light rebrand last Friday. Courthouse News Service reporter Bianca Bruno joins the Brewbound team to discuss what it was like inside the courtroom and where the case goes from here, including post-trial motions. Plus, Harris Beach partner Brendan Palfreyman returns.