Shares of Boston Beer (SAM) hit a 52-week low today, with stocks plummeting more than 8 percent after the company reported subpar first quarter earnings following yesterday’s market close. As a result, the nation’s second largest craft beer company lowered its expectations for 2016 during a formal earnings call with investors and analysts last evening — reporting sales well below previously projected targets for the first quarter of the year.
Talk about having your finger on the pulse: Anheuser-Busch InBev will wholly acquire one of Italy’s most popular craft breweries, Birra del Borgo. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed and Birra del Borgo founder Leonardo Di Vincenzo will continue to serve as CEO.
Pabst Brewing is one of the few companies that could put Star Wars’ smoothest space traveler, a nationally acclaimed barbecue pitmaster and hundreds of beer wholesalers in the same room without the entire event feeling like an the illegitimate love child of Comic-Con and South by Southwest. Maybe it helped that the scene was in Milwaukee: that’s where the country’s fifth largest beer supplier hosted, for the first time in about three decades, a rather lavish and impressive national distributor convention.
The iconic Brooklyn Brewery brand is getting a makeover for the first time in 28 years. The company this week announced the launch of a full-scale revamp for its entire line of packaged products.
Press Clips: Deschutes Targets 1 Million Barrels Annually at Roanoke Production Facility; Untappd Launches New Taplist Platform for Retailers; AB-InBev Accepts Asahi Offer for European Brands
Makeovers ares the name of the game in craft these days, even for relative newcomers like Ninkasi Brewing. The Oregon-based craft brewery, which was founded in 2006, this month will rollout rebranded versions of flagship offerings Total Domination IPA, Tricerahops Double IPA and Dawn of the Red, Red IPA.
Founders Brewing Company will expand its distribution once again next month when it begins distributing in Maryland via a wholesale arrangement with Baltimore-based Legends Ltd. Distributing, a Sheehan Family Companies operation.
The sale of Devils Backbone to beer giant Anheuser-Busch InBev has had rapid aftershocks within the industry. Devils Backbone co-owner Steve Crandall, who had served on the board of the non-profit trade association and chaired the group’s market development committee, offered his resignation last Tuesday, the same day his company announced the sale to A-B, Crandall told Brewbound.
Brooklyn Brewery to Launch New Partner Brewery in South Korea; The Latest on MegaBrew; Georgia’s Dept. of Revenue Lifts Direct Sales Restrictions; Four Peaks to Expand Distribution Outside of Arizona; Tecate Rebrands, Expands to Nationwide Distribution in U.S.; Small Brewers Win Tax Breaks in Virginia
It’s a two-edged knife: Like so many emerging craft brewers across the U.S., Spokane’s No-Li Brewhouse has finally reached the point where it needs to spend a few million dollars if it wants to keep growing. It’s just one of many tradeoffs that No-Li is facing as it continues to mature. How much of its impressive per-case margin should it give up as it moves to faster-selling packages? Which territories should it withdraw from to focus on its home base? When it does build a new brewery, how big should it go?
At long last, the Brewers Association has finally added Swedish-Style Gotlandsdricke to its list of officially recognized beer styles. The organization yesterday released its 2016 “Beer Style Guidelines,” a reference of style descriptions and product specifications used by brewers and beer competition organizers around the world.
One million barrels. That’s where Anheuser-Busch InBev’s “High End” craft production is headed in 2016 following the acquisition of Virginia-based Devils Backbone Brewing Company, the company’s eighth craft brewery purchase since 2011 and its sixth in the last 18 months.
Bell’s Brewery yesterday announced plans to enter Texas in 2017. In a press release, the nation’s seventh-largest craft beer producer said it would launch its full portfolio in the state early next year, although the Michigan-based brewery has yet to formally ink any distribution agreements.
Anheuser-Busch InBev today announced it would acquire Virginia-based Devils Backbone Brewing Company. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed and the transaction is expected to close in the second quarter. The move is part of an ongoing march into the craft brewing world by the world’s largest brewery, which has acquired eight craft beer companies since 2011.
