Rhode Island will soon become the 45th state added to New Belgium Brewing’s national footprint. Less than a week after announcing plans to begin selling beer in Connecticut this June, the nation’s fourth largest craft brewery today announced it had signed a wholesale agreement to simultaneously launch throughout neighboring Rhode Island via C&C Distributors this summer.
Hardly a week goes by now where we aren’t receiving some kind of announcement regarding a branding update. So at the 2016 Craft Brewers Conference, held last week in Philadelphia, Brewbound asked several attendees for their thoughts on the recent uptick in craft rebrands and how companies should approach the process of updating their looks.
Currently slated for an early July opening, The Alchemist’s new brewery and visitor center in Stowe, Vermont will once again give thirsty beer travelers an opportunity to purchase the popular Heady Topper double IPA directly from the source. San Diego’s Ballast Point is heading north and will move into an 11,000 sq. ft. restaurant in Long Beach, according to the LA Times.
In this week’s distribution roundup: New Belgium enters Connecticut, Deschutes signs with Blue Ridge Beverage in Virginia and Short’s Brewing rolls out in Wisconsin.
Alaskan Brewing Company yesterday announced that longtime chief operating officer Linda Thomas would take over as the company’s CEO. Citing their desire to continue building the “pioneering legacy” of Alaskan Brewing, company founders Geoff and Marcy Larson said promoting Thomas to CEO would enable the pair to spend more time “focusing on innovation and the spirit of craft brewing.”
More than 12,000 beer industry professionals converged on Philadelphia last week for the annual Craft Brewers Conference, organized by trade group the Brewers Association. The weeklong event featured nearly 80 educational seminars, 835 trade show exhibitors and hundreds of brand activation events around town — including our very own Brew Talks meetup with Dogfish Head.
Are some U.S. brewers at risk of expanding faster than their market demand? And should you go with a bathroom or a taproom? Both topics were on the table at last week’s Brew Talks when a panel of brewery owners talked growth and expansion strategies in the craft beer space. Meeting during the Craft Brewers Conference in Philadelphia were Firestone Walker co-founder David Walker, along with 21st Amendment co-founder Nico Freccia and Devils Backbone COO Hayes Humphreys.
Christopher Jackson, whose father Jess Jackson created the well-known Kendall-Jackson wine label in 1982 and built a global wine empire before passing away in 2011, is in the process of constructing a 25,000-barrel craft brewery to open this summer in California’s Sonoma County. In an interview with Brewbound, Jackson described his new $8 million Seismic Brewing Company project, which will be located at 2870 Duke Ct. in Santa Rosa, Calif., as an independent venture.
We’re about one month away from the 2016 Brewbound Session, happening on June 9 in Brooklyn, and we’re excited to share preliminary program notes with current attendees and those considering a trip to NYC. We’ve assembled a standout lineup of speakers and panelists for this summer’s conference — here’s what you can expect to hear next month.
About six months ago, headlines were suggesting that Dogfish Head was struggling to grow as fast as its competitors. Speaking to a crowd of 300 beer industry professionals at last week’s Brew Talks meetup, held on May 4 at World Café Live during the 2016 Craft Brewer Conference in Philadelphia, Calagione provided some context.
Russian River Chooses Site for Second Location; Pabst Sues MillerCoors Over Eden Plant Closure; Former MillerCoors Executive Pleads Guilty to Embezzlement; MegaBrew Moves Forward in Australia, Stalled in South Africa; Molson Coors’ Carling Becomes Official Beer Parner of England’s Premier League; Craft Breweries on the Campaign Trail
In the midst of last week’s Craft Brewers Conference, and on the heels of disappointing first quarter earnings from the country’s largest publicly traded craft outfit, Boston Beer, a trio of beer companies last week released their Q1 financial results. All three companies — Anheuser-Busch InBev, MillerCoors and Craft Brew Alliance — each posted first quarter depletion declines.
San Diego’s Green Flash Brewing has announced plans to begin national distribution of its aluminum packages. The company will begin selling three year-round offerings in 12 oz. cans next month. 6-packs of the company’s Jibe Session IPA, Passion Fruit Kicker and Sea to Sea Zwickel Lager began shipping to U.S. distributors today, according to a press release.
Craft beer brands that are bought out by private equity firms remain closer to their independent roots than those that are sold to large beer companies, according to Brewers Association director Paul Gatza. Speaking at this morning’s ‘State of the Industry” presentation during the Craft Brewers Conference in Philadelphia, Gatza told attendees that the difference maker in the white-hot transactional market is independence from the beer establishment.
