The Colorado beer distribution landscape is consolidating once again, this time with multi-state beer, wine and spirits wholesaler Breakthru Beverage broadening its reach in the state. The company today announced the acquisition of craft and import beer wholesaler C.R. Goodman. Specific financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
One month after it announced a sale to MillerCoors, Texas’ Revolver Brewing has made its first official distribution transition to Dallas-based MillerCoors wholesaler, Andrews Distributing.
After completing an $8 million expansion earlier this year, Chicago’s Revolution Brewing is now equipped with 150,000 barrels of capacity. They’ll finish 2016 somewhere around 75,000 barrels or, expressed differently, about half of what it is capable of producing. And with new retail opportunities getting tougher to find in its home state, the company has begun looking elsewhere for growth. That’s why in June, the company quietly launched in Wisconsin with General Beverage. It’s also why it will enter New York City with Manhattan Beer in October.
The era of microbrewery consolidation is underway, and latest craft deal to cross the newswire is between a pair of small producers in Arizona. Fast-growing Huss Brewing Company, founded in South Tempe just three years ago by husband-and-wife team Jeff and Leah Huss, today announced its acquisition of the more established Papago Brewing Company, which was founded in 2001 in Scottsdale.
Forbidden Root founder Robert Finkel and 5 Rabbit Cervecería founder Andres Araya will discuss the state of innovation in craft brewing and their experiences operating highly-differentiated craft breweries. A second discussion with Donn Bichsel, Revolution Brewing’s director of sales and marketing, will examine current marketplace trends, increasing competition and struggles that mid-size craft regional brewers are facing as they look to scale their brands.
Anheuser-Busch InBev today announced it would acquire fast-growing hard seltzer producer Boathouse Beverage LLC., which makes and markets the SpikedSeltzer brand. A final acquisition price was not disclosed, but Boathouse co-founders Nick Shields and Dave Holmes described the deal as a 100 percent equity purchase.
Anheuser-Busch InBev has struck another high-end deal, this time purchasing the 225-year-old Belgium-based Brouwerij Bosteels. American financial news and services website TheStreet.com, citing Belgian press reports, pegged the deal at $225 million.
The U.S. Department of Justice has officially closed its investigation into Anheuser-Busch InBev’s acquisition of Devils Backbone Brewing Company, according to a statement issued today by Deputy Assistant Attorney General Juan Arteaga. Citing conditions in a previously agreed upon settlement between A-B InBev and the DOJ — one that permits the world’s largest beer company to proceed with its acquisition of SABMiller — Arteaga said the “competitive implications of ABI’s acquisition of Devils Backbone are too uncertain at this time to warrant further investigation.”
Brooklyn Brewery today announced that longtime beer industry veteran Dave Duffy would join the company as the vice president of business development, a newly created position at the 29-year old company. Duffy — whom over the last 20 years has held various sales and marketing positions with Boston Beer Company, New Belgium Brewing and Great Divide, among other organizations — had most recently been working with First Beverage Group.
Denver’s Stem Ciders, which recently signed a distribution agreement with Breakthru Beverage for coverage throughout Colorado, has partnered with Fort Collins-based craft beer maker Odell Brewing for sales support across the state. Similar to a traditional broker relationship, the smaller Stem Ciders will gain access to Odell’s sales force as well as its inventory and customer relationship management (CRM) software programs in exchange for a fee.
Call it the Oskar Blues effect. Since its sale to Oskar Blues Holding Co. last March, Michigan’s Perrin Brewing Company has been growing like a weed. Volumes have increased 92 percent over last year, and $1 million of equipment investments enabled the company to eclipse 14,000 barrels of production in 2015, the company noted in a press release detailing its growth.
After a yearlong search, Stone Brewing Company has finally identified its next chief executive. The San Diego-based craft brewery today named Dominic Engels, who most recently served as the president of POM Wonderful, as its next CEO.
Craft Brew Alliance’s long-term route to market in the U.S. — and perhaps its future ownership structure — became clearer this week after the publicly traded craft beer maker unveiled enhanced distribution and contract brewing agreements with its largest individual shareholder, Anheuser-Busch InBev.
Craft Brew Alliance and Anheuser-Busch InBev today announced a new set of commercial agreements that will give the smaller CBA guaranteed distribution via A-B’s wholesalers in the U.S. through 2028 and expanded access to a variety of international markets as well as brewing capacity at many of the larger company’s 12 brewery locations. In a joint announcement, the two companies said the new arrangements would “expand and strengthen the companies’ long-term relationship and create new growth opportunities for both companies.”
