Dogfish Head Craft Brewery is just five states away from completing national distribution. The Milton, Delaware-based craft brewery, which merged with Boston Beer Company earlier this year, announced Monday the addition of its 45th state — Mississippi — via Capital City Beverages.
Lighthouse Strategies — the maker of the Cannabiniers and Two Roots lines of cannabis-infused non-alcoholic craft beers – announced today plans to roll out a line of non-infused, non-alcoholic craft beers. Starting in September, Two Roots’ non-alcoholic beers will be available in 145 BevMo! stores throughout California.
Barring a resolution before next week, President Donald Trump’s escalating trade war with China — and increased tariffs on aluminum can sheet — threatens to further impact U.S. beer companies’ bottom lines. On Friday, Trump announced via Twitter plans to increase tariffs on $550 billion of imported Chinese goods over the next two months in retaliation for China saying it would impose $75 billion in tariffs on goods imported from America beginning October 1. And aluminum can producers are bracing for the higher aluminum costs and passing them onto their customers.
In this week’s Last Call: California ABC Investigates Amazon; US Beer Shipments Down Again in July; Anheuser-Busch’s ZX Ventures Acquires Barbarian; MillerCoors Launches New Blue Moon Campaign
The deadline for Anheuser-Busch InBev to make a qualifying offer to acquire the remaining stake of Craft Brew Alliance (CBA) came and went today without an offer. The world’s largest beer manufacturer, which already owns 31.3 percent of the smaller Portland, Oregon-headquartered craft beer maker, had until today, August 23, to either make an offer for the remaining stake in the company at a minimum of $24.50 per share (about $328 million) or pay a $20 million fee.
Truly Hard Seltzer-maker Boston Beer Company announced today the nationwide launch of “Truly on Tap,” a new product that the company is calling ”one of the first hard seltzers available on draft” across the country. Boston Beer founder Jim Koch first teased the product, then called “Pure” — a name that competing brand White Claw also announced for a similar product — in January as an alternative for vodka soda drinkers in bars and restaurants.
Three key members of Stony Creek Brewery’s team were laid off this week. Stony Creek director of operations Manny Rodriguez confirmed to Brewbound that brewmaster Andy Schwartz, director of sales Jamal Robinson and key account manager Spencer Niebuhr are no longer employed by the company.
Hard seltzers continue to dominate the talk of the beer industry this summer, and rightfully so with market research firm Nielsen projecting the industry to reach $1 billion by the end of 2019. The seltzer trend has even begun to bleed into pop culture, with a comedian coining the phrase “ain’t no laws when you’re drinking Claws,” and seltzer taking away another occasion once owned by beer — country music — with singer-songwriter Mark Leach’s ode to White Claw, “Drinkin’ Claws.” The culmination of the so-called summer of seltzer — if it actually does prove seasonal — may come on September 14, with the “Fizz Fight” in Denver.
Maui Brewing Company is rolling out a line of ready-to-drink canned cocktails and hard seltzers in hopes of offering a local alternative to products being shipped to Hawaii from the mainland, co-founder and CEO Garrett Marrero told Brewbound. The new lines, which will initially be sold only in Hawaii, offer Maui “an avenue for growth” as competition increases, he added.
In a deal that will make it the largest wholesaler of Anheuser-Busch products in Massachusetts, Quality Beverage announced today an agreement to acquire Williams Distributing. Financial terms of the asset purchase, pending supplier approval, were not disclosed. The transaction is expected to close in October. Speaking to Brewbound, Quality Beverage president and CEO Conrad Wetterau said the company will add 2.8 million case equivalents (CEs) in the transaction from Williams Distributing.
In this week’s Last Call: Breakside Brewing Implements Employee Stock Ownership Plan; The Brewers Association Shares Brewery Employee Diversity Data; Guns N’ Roses and CANarchy Settle Lawsuit; Anheuser-Busch Rolls Out Bud Light College Branded Packaging.
“Less isn’t more. It’s right.” That’s the motto of Five Drinks Co., the new high-end, ready-to-drink canned cocktail venture co-founded by former Anheuser-Busch InBev executive Felipe Szpigel. The tagline is apt given that Five Drinks’ offerings are made with five ingredients — or less — and packaged in 6.8 oz. cans (the average size of a cocktail pour), compared to competing brands in 12 oz. cans.
Four Loko maker Phusion Projects plans to launch a 14% ABV hard seltzer sometime in the fourth quarter of 2019. The Four Loko Twitter account teased the launch Tuesday night, posting an image of the forthcoming seltzer that quickly garnered 76,700 likes and 21,400 retweets, as of press time. Phusion Projects co-founder and managing partner Jaisen Freeman confirmed to Brewbound that Four Loko Seltzer will be introduced later this year.
The beer industry’s efforts to make federal excise tax relief for brewers permanent received a boost Tuesday when members of a bipartisan congressional task force expressed support for the cause. U.S. Senate Finance Committee chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and ranking member Ron Wyden (D-OR) released a report from the Individual, Excise, and Other Temporary Tax Policy Task Force, which called for the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act (CBMTRA) to be permanently enacted.
