Duvel Moortgat USA today announced it has hired former Diageo marketing veteran Doug Campbell as the new president of Brewery Ommegang. In a press release, the company said Campbell would “oversee the day-to-day operations at the Cooperstown brewery” and “spearhead all marketing initiatives for Brewery Ommegang.” Current marketing director Bill Wetmore is leaving to pursue other opportunities, the company noted.
Longtime Sierra Nevada brewmaster Steve Dresler will retire in early 2017, the beer company announced last week. Under Dresler’s direction, Sierra Nevada won eight World Beer Cup awards and 31 Great American Beer Festival medals, according to the release. Sierra Nevada said it has already begun the search for a new brewmaster and that Dresler would help train the yet-to-be named replacement.
In this week’s edition of Last Call: Olde Mecklenburg Brewery embarks on a multi-million dollar expansion and launches an ad campaign; Stone Brewing taps its first Richmond-brewed beer; Appalachian Mountain Brewery updates shareholders and the Beer Institute reports import volumes through May.
Around this time last month, we were busy hosting nearly 250 beer industry professionals at the Brewbound Session in Brooklyn. Held on June 9 at the Liberty Warehouse in Red Hook, the summer 2016 edition of our bi-annual business conference featured a variety of presentations from craft entrepreneurs and panel discussions with notable industry experts.
Hoping to emulate the early success of his San Diego-based beer company Saint Archer Brewing, which was purchased by MillerCoors last September, entrepreneur Josh Landan is doubling down on the beverage business. Landan, together with current Saint Archer vice president Jeff Hansson, is preparing to launch Villager Goods, a line of food and beverage products backed by many of the same action sports figures who initially funded Saint Archer.
63 percent of all beer sold on draft in Oregon last year was made by an in-state brewery, according to a new report from the Oregon Brewers Guild. The non-profit trade association last week reported that Oregon residents drank more than 650,000 barrels of local beer in 2015, more than 22 percent of all beer consumed in the state.
Breakthru Beverage, which was formed after Wirtz Beverage Group and Charmer Sunbelt Group merged last October, yesterday announced that it had acquired Alliance Beverage Distributing Company in Arizona.
Boulevard Brewing today announced plans to expand its sales footprint, adding new distribution in Delaware, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. Boulevard beers will begin hitting the new markets in late July, the company said.
After receiving final approval from the Competition Tribunal in South Africa, Anheuser-Busch InBev is one step closer to finalizing its $107 billion takeover of SABMiller. South African regulators cleared the way for the tie-up on Thursday, and A-B InBev CEO Carlos Brito said the company is “on track” to finalize the merger in the second half of 2016.
What a week for craft dealmaking. Yesterday, Lagunitas Brewing announced a string of investments into three smaller breweries that are intended to help the country’s sixth largest craft outfit “expand” the way it participates in local markets; Oklahoma’s Krebs Brewing Company has purchased Tulsa-based Prairie Artisan Ales, a small but well-known craft label amongst beer aficionados and another small deal in the Pacific Northwest will see the intellectual property and select brewing assets of Seattle-based Hilliard’s Beer LLC. transferred to the smaller Odin Brewing Company in Tukwila, Wash.
In just 40 months, popular Boston-based craft brewery Trillium has gone from a hard to obtain brand to one that is currently producing at a run rate of about 20,000 barrels. But the uptick in production hasn’t made the company’s beer any easier to find around town. The brewery, which celebrated its third anniversary in March, expects to produce about 12,000 barrels in 2015. That’s up from just 2,500 barrels one year ago.
Boston Beer Company last week named former Moet Hennessy executive Jonathan Potter as its chief marketing officer, a newly created position for the country’s second-largest craft beer producer. Potter, who will officially join Boston Beer in August, most recently worked as the managing director for Moet Hennessy’s Chandon California division and had previously served as that company’s CMO and executive vice president between 2012 and 2015.
In this week’s edition of Last Call: Barnes & Noble, the last remaining big box bookstore chain in the U.S., is turning to food and beverage — including beer — to boost sales; Russian River Brewing Company closes escrow on a 15 acre property, located in Sonoma County, where it plans to build an 85,000 sq. ft. brewery and restaurant.
Sales of craft beer are still slowing, according to the latest data from market research firm IRI Worldwide. Craft volume sales across the firm’s measured multi-outlet and convenience channels (MULC — which comprise grocery, drug, club, dollar, mass-merchandiser, Walmart and military stores), are up just 6.2 percent year-to-date through June 12. And over the latest four-week period, also ending June 12, volume gains are even slower — craft sales are up just 5 percent.
