Craft Brew Alliance (CBA) today named longtime board member David Lord as its next Chairman. Lord, who has served as a board member since the company was formed in 2008, will replace outgoing Chairman Kurt Widmer on January 1, 2016.
It’s last call, so grab a beer and catch up on all the news that we overlooked this week, including: Stone’s first German-made beers, a bankruptcy filing in San Francisco, yet another trademark suit and Amazon’s newest service — one-hour booze delivery.
Earlier this month, Craft Brew Alliance — which produces and markets the Redhook brand, as well as the Widmer, Kona and Omission lines of craft beers — announced plans to open a new Redhook Brewery brewpub in Seattle, the brand’s birthplace.
Pabst Brewing Company has struck yet another strategic partnership, this time with the struggling Vermont Hard Cider Company, a subsidiary of C&C Group plc. The company today announced an exclusive, long-term agreement to distribute, market and sell all of Vermont Hard Cider’s domestic brands, including Woodchuck, Gumption, Wyder’s and Hornsby’s. Pabst will also gain access to Vermont’s portfolio of international cider brands from Ireland and England, including Magners and Blackthorn. Specific financial terms of the transaction — which is slated to begin on March 1, 2016 — were not disclosed, but Pabst will have an option to acquire Vermont’s U.S. cider brands and related assets.
Boston Beer’s newest creation, Rebel Raw – a hazy, 10 percent double IPA clocking in at 100 IBUs – has finally hit retail shelves. Brewed with six pounds of hops per barrel, Rebel Raw – which is packaged in 16 oz. cans and sold in four-packs — is by far the hoppiest beer Boston Beer has ever produced. It’s also unfiltered and being marketed with a 35-day shelf life to promote freshness.
A number of beer industry stakeholders gathered in front of Congress Tuesday to discuss what impact, if any, a merger of the world’s two largest beer companies would have on the U.S. beer landscape. In a prepared statement before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, A-B InBev CEO Carlos Brito shared his company’s outlook on the deal and explained how the transaction would benefit consumers and enable A-B to better compete in foreign regions.
Hard cider has always faced an uphill battle for attention, one that has required entrepreneurs in the space to convince both consumers and retailers that fermented apples should be on the menu. In recent years, cider companies have enjoyed healthy growth. But now a new competitor, hard soda, has entered the fray, and it’s got some cider makers worried about their ability to maintain their position on the shelf.
Reyes Beverage Group, via its Premium Distributors outfits in Virginia and Washington D.C., has acquired the distribution rights to a pair of the most prominent craft brands in the country. In two separate announcements, the company said it purchased the rights to Lagunitas Brewing – already one of its top craft suppliers – and Stone Brewing, which is building a second brewing facility in the area.
Bell’s Brewery will expand distribution into Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas next year and has begun the process of identifying new wholesale partners in each state. In a press statement, the Michigan-based brewery said launch plans have not been determined but that potential distributors are being identified.
It only took 142 years, but the U.S. craft beer industry has finally set a new record. The Brewers Association announced today that as of Nov. 30, there are 4,144 breweries operating in the country, surpassing the previous record of 4,131, which dates back to 1873.
Sun King Brewing is continuing to reestablish distribution across its home state of Indiana, today announcing expanded coverage to 39 counties in southern Indiana via Monarch Beverage. The decision to grow comes nearly one full year after the company pulled out of some Indiana markets to avoid exceeding a statewide small brewery production cap that, at the time, was set at just 30,000 barrels. That cap was raised in May, when Indiana Gov. Mike Pence signed into law a bill that tripled the production limit to 90,000 barrels for self-distributing breweries with tasting rooms.
It’s almost hard to believe, but we’re just a few days away from the start of our eighth full-day business conference, the Brewbound Session, happening on Dec. 3 at the Paradise Point Resort & Spa in San Diego, Calif..More than 200 entrepreneurs, brewery executives, distributors and investors are already planning to join us on Thursday and tickets are nearly SOLD OUT. In the meantime, we thought we’d share more details about the agenda, so our guests know what to expect from each presentation and panel discussion.
A federal mediator is slated to oversee negotiations this Wednesday between Portland, Oregon’s Teamsters Local 162 and General Distributors, Inc (GDI), a beer wholesaler responsible for getting brands like Corona, Coors, Sierra Nevada and a number of craft products to market.
In this week’s holiday edition of last call, Brewbound examines Tito’s “Handmade” claims, Sierra Nevada’s new rare beer club and life after acquisition for 10 Barrel Brewing founders.
