Danny Brager, the long-time leader of market research firm Nielsen’s beverage alcohol practice, is exiting the company to pursue other opportunities after nearly 40 years.

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic were easy to see in Craft Brew Alliance’s latest earnings report. Shipments of CBA products during the three-month period ending June 30 — in the thick of the pandemic and its shut down of on-premise establishments — declined 10.2%, to 206,900 barrels, down from 230,500 barrels in Q2 2019.

During the Q&A portion of the call, Monster CEO Rodney Sacks was noncommittal when asked about the company’s potential interest in launching an alcoholic beverage product, specifically a hard seltzer.

After some tense weeks of picketing and negotiating, Philadelphia-based Dock Street Brewing announced it would change its service model so that front-of-house employees at its West Philadelphia location would be paid regular hourly wages, rather than relying on tips.

The National Beer Wholesalers Association’s Annual Convention won’t be taking place in-person in Orlando, Florida, this October after all. The largest meeting of beer wholesalers in the country will instead go virtual from October 4-7. The NBWA was set to host its Annual Convention in Orlando in early October, however, the COVID-19 pandemic has rendered those plans unfeasible.

On this week’s Brewbound Frontlines, Fresh Fest co-founder Day Bracey joins to discuss the upcoming beer festival showcasing Black-owned breweries, and industry professionals share taproom staff management best practices.

Stone Brewing CEO Dominic Engels has departed the Escondido, California-headquartered craft brewery, according to an internal letter to staff from co-founder Steve Wagner and obtained by Brewbound.

The clock seemed to expire last week on Massachusetts craft brewers’ hopes of finally achieving franchise law reform. After finally reaching a compromise with wholesalers after a decade of contentious negotiations, the measure (S. 2841) unanimously passed the Senate but couldn’t get out of the House Ways and Means Committee before the expiration of the legislative session last Friday.

Eight trillion dollars. This almost unfathomable sum of money could be added to the U.S. economy in the next 30 years if not for racial disparities baked into social and economic structures, according to “The Business Case for Racial Equity — a Strategy for Growth,” a paper Ani Turner wrote for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

Under normal circumstances, about 10% of all the beer consumed in the U.S. flows from kegs, through draft lines and into pitchers and glasses at bars, restaurants, brewery taprooms and other venues using a combination of physics and chemistry. Few people understand draft system wizardry better than Neil Witte, so who better than the Master Cicerone and draft expert to ascertain the quality of draft service at on-premise retailers?

Molson Coors Beverage Company has hired Jennifer Martinez as senior director of corporate affairs. Also, the Breakthru Beverage Group announced that it has acquired the Miller portfolio of brands in southern Nevada, giving the multi-state beer, wine and spirits wholesaler the full Molson Coors portfolio in the state.

After filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last year, Somerville Brewing Company is permanently closing its doors, according to a social media post Monday. Portland, Oregon-based Base Camp Brewing announced last week it will close its doors on August 9.

In any other year, 10 consecutive weeks of billion dollar off-premise beer category sales would be eye-opening. Consider that in all of 2019, there was just one week — the week of the July 4 holiday — in which beer category off-premise dollar sales topped $1 billion. Now, it’s a footnote in weekly reports.

In a time when off-premise beer sales top $1 billion weekly, without the on-premise half of the trade, the beer industry still has “a hole to dig out of,” National Beer Wholesalers Association chief economist Lester Jones said during a webinar presented by invoice tech firm Fintech.