The Brewers Association (BA) released its annual top 50 rankings of craft breweries by beer sales volume in 2020. Although there was some jockeying for position, the top of the list remained largely unchanged, with D.G. Yuengling & Son, Boston Beer Company and Sierra Nevada holding down the top three spots again.
Under the new county order, breweries, wineries and craft distilleries may open for indoor service capped at 25% capacity if all alcohol sales are accompanied by bona fide meals, which can be provided in partnership with a food vendor. Businesses without food service may offer outdoor on-site service.
Molson Coors addressed concerns caused by a cybersecurity incident and February’s winter storm in Texas in a post-trading Friday press release that reaffirmed its full year 2021 financial guidance and provided an update on its post-disruption business.
Sierra Nevada has announced it will reopen its breweries in Chico, California, and Mills River, North Carolina, to the public in May after what will be a 14-month hiatus from on-site service, according to a report in the Chico Enterprise-Record. Philadelphia-headquartered, on-demand delivery platform goPuff announced the completion of a $1.15 billion fundraising round earlier this week.
When the COVID-19 pandemic forced most Americans to stay home except for essential errands last spring, on-demand alcohol delivery e-commerce platform Drizly’s sales skyrocketed. “We saw years’ worth of growth — five years’ worth of growth — in just a three-month timeframe,” Drizly chief operating officer Cathy Lewenberg said.
On the heels of the NCAA tournament’s opening week, Buffalo Wild Wings beverage product and program innovation manager Jason Murphy joins a special 60-minute “Retail Pulse” edition of Brewbound Frontlines to discuss the chicken wing chain’s 2021 mandate program, the importance of local beer to the sports bar’s menus and the increasing presence of hard seltzers and beyond beer offerings in the company’s stores.
Stone Brewing continues to fill out its leadership team under new CEO Maria Stipp. The Escondido, California-headquartered craft brewery has named Tom McReavy its new senior vice president of sales, effective March 29, the company announced Thursday.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has dismissed concerns raised over Craft Brew Alliance’s (CBA) sale of Kona Brewing’s Hawaii operations to private equity firm PV Brewing, according to a March 17 response brief to public comments filed by the state attorney general and Maui Brewing Company founder and CEO Garrett Marrero.
Some Kentucky craft brewers will soon be able to distribute their own products and terminate wholesaler contracts more easily after Gov. Andy Beshear signed Senate Bill 15 into law on March 18. The new law will allow breweries producing fewer than 50,000 barrels of beer annually to self-distribute up to 2,500 barrels per year.
Ballast Point will push forward with a once-planned brewpub in San Francisco, while permanently closing its Chicago location.
Off-premise beverage alcohol dollar sales fell for the first time in more than a year, declining 1.9% for the week ending March 13 as the industry faces tough comparisons due to the shift in consumer purchasing a year ago, as shoppers stocked their fridges as on-premise shutdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic began, according to market research firm NielsenIQ.
Independent San Diego wholesaler Scout Distribution will add statewide distribution in Arizona, starting April 5. The company will start operations from a warehouse in Phoenix, with plans to add a second in Tucson in the next 12 to 18 months.
St. Patrick’s Day draft beer volume was down 20.9% compared to the same day in 2019 at on-premise establishments tracked by BeerBoard. Declining by a fifth may not seem like positive news, but BeerBoard has clocked nationwide draft volume declines at 48-51% since bars and restaurants began reopening in limited capacity last summer.
If you’re getting into the $4 billion hard seltzer segment in 2021 with a glut of new offerings, you better go hard. For New Belgium Brewing Company, that amounts to the biggest investment behind a brand launch in the company’s history for Fruit Smash, the Fort Collins, Colorado-headquartered craft brewery’s irreverent seltzer line, which began hitting retailers earlier this month.
