MillerCoors has tabled plans to release a new summer seasonal ale after some wholesalers — including those on the company’s distributor council — criticized the new introduction. The company will instead release “Blue Moon Belgian Table Belgian Pils,” it told distributors today.
Bayhawk Ales, the oldest brewery in Orange County, Calif., is being rebranded as Evans Brewing Co. This isn’t just any recalibration. This is the result of a lost proxy battle and the hostile takeover of a public company. But now, under the Evans name, the company, which is in some ways new and in some ways old, is finally looking towards the future.
Remember the class action lawsuit from earlier this year that alleged MillerCoors was deceptively brewing and marketing its Blue Moon Brewing line of craft products? Well, on Wednesday, a California judge all but dismissed the suit, saying that the company’s use of the Blue Moon Brewing Company name on its label “shielded it from liability under California’s consumer protection laws under safe harbor doctrine,” according to Law360.
It’s been nearly 16 years since Boulevard Brewing altered its appearance, but in an effort to appeal to more consumers in more places, the Kansas City-based brewery is now beginning to test new packaging designs. Over the next several months, the company plans to introduce new labels, designed in partnership with Helms Workshop, a Texas-based strategic design studio that has worked with beverage clients like Austin Beerworks, Spencer Trappist Brewery and Southern Comfort.
Oskar Blues is now nearly national. The Colorado-headquartered craft brewery today announced expanded distribution in Mississippi and Utah, bringing the total number of states where it sells beer to 46. The company has signed with four distributors in Mississippi — Clark Beverage Group, Stokes Distributing Company, Capital City Beverage and FEB Distributing — and M&M Distributing (part of Admiral Beverage) in Utah.
Casual burger chain Red Robin is beefing up its beer program, installing more tap lines and remodeling all locations with a new “gourmet burgers and brews” logo on the outside of its restaurants. To help bolster its reputation as a craft-savvy chain, Red Robin inked a three-year sponsorship of the Brewers Association-run Great American Beer… Read more »
Coca-Cola Company today signed a letter of intent with Great Lakes Coca-Cola Distribution L.L.C., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reyes Holdings, granting the company exclusive rights to sell and distribute Coca-Cola products in four new states.
Consolidation in the wholesaling business continued today when two prominent multi-state distributors of beer, wine and spirits — Chicago-based Wirtz Beverage Group and New York-based Charmer Sunbelt Group — announced a merger and the creation of a jointly owned venture, Breakthru Beverage Group. The two companies have signed an agreement that will combine their beverage alcohol operations into a new entity and simultaneously create the second-largest distributor of beer, wine and spirits in the U.S., with sales of more than $6 billion annually, behind Southern Wine & Spirits.
Brewbound is pleased to announce that Brew Talks — a traveling meetup for beer industry professionals — will make its final stop of 2015 in Los Angeles next month. The event, taking place at Golden Road Brewing (5410 W. San Fernando Rd., Los Angeles, CA), will feature two discussions with brewery co-founder Meg Gill and Brian Mulvaney, the senior vice president of Bank of America’s beverage group.
Boulevard Brewing today announced it would expand distribution to Arizona and Kentucky, inking deals with two wholesalers — Arizona’s Hensley Beverage Company and Kentucky’s Beer House Distributors.
Ballast Point Brewing & Spirits, Inc. today filed a form S-1 with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), indicating its intent to become a publicly traded company. The initial public offering (IPO) is valued at $172.5 million, according to filings, and underwriters include Goldman, Sachs & Co., Morgan Stanley, Baird, BMO Capital, Cowen and Company and Nomura. Ballast Point’s proposed NASDAQ Global Select Market symbol is “PINT.”
In the acquisition age, few craft brewery founders are “selling in.” But that’s exactly the route Charles and Rose Ann Finkel, the founders of Seattle-based Pike Place Brewing, have taken. The company today announced the sale of a “significant minority” stake to three key employees: Drew Gillespie, Vice President Operations; Patti Baker, Vice President Controller; and Gary Marx, Executive Chef.
In an effort to keep up with the growing consumer desire for local craft brands, executives from Craft Brew Alliance stressed the importance of their 2016 regional strategy during the company’s annual national CBA-Con meeting with Anheuser-Busch InBev wholesalers, held on Wednesday in Las Vegas.
The 5th edition of the Startup Brewery Challenge, Brewbound’s one of kind business pitch competition for emerging craft brands, will return to the upcoming Brewbound Session, taking place on Dec. 3 in San Diego, Calif. Presented by Craft Brew Alliance, the Startup Brewery Challenge gives U.S. craft breweries who have been on the market for less than two years a chance to show off their business plans, sample one core product offering and receive immediate feedback from a panel of five expert judges.
