What’s the best way to propel your brand forward without making mistakes that would otherwise sink a new company? If you’re Clayton Christopher, you hire knowledgeable talent. Christopher, the Austin-based founder of Sweet Leaf Tea and Deep Eddy Vodka, said he believes that’s what today’s most successful entrepreneurs are doing right, and he swears by it.
In 2013, Texas enacted a number of laws pertinent to the state’s beer industry that effectively eased certain regulations on how breweries and brewpubs of all different sizes do business. How exactly were the state’s beer manufacturers able to mobilize its advocacy effort? According to Charles Vallhonrat, executive director of the Texas Craft Brewers Guild, it was all about creating a unified front across the three tiers.
Aiming to expedite its national expansion effort, Fireman’s Brew has released yet another private stock offering, this time an equity sale available to investors outside of California. Fireman’s Brew, which is based in Los Angeles, Calif., aims to sell more than 4.5 million shares of ‘Flash Seed Preferred stock,’ at $1.249 per share, through FlashFunders, an online equity-funding platform that connects early stage companies with investors across the globe.
Every champion golfer comes to The Brew Hub imbued with a towering source of inspiration. It starts as a solitary journey, but it is one that no golfer, if he dreams of becoming a craft brewer, makes alone. For Keegan Bradley, a boy from Woodstock, VT., it was a lager, brewed with the comforting guidance of the legendary Dr. Paul Farnsworth.
Here’s the good news: Brewbound pored over the latest IRI spreadsheet so you didn’t have to. Here’s the bad news (if you can even call it that): Craft growth actually slowed during the latest four-week period, ending October 5, 2014.
Brewbound will travel to Austin, TX tomorrow to host Brew Talks, a traveling meetup series for beer industry professionals. The event — which will be hosted at the world headquarters of popular entertainment website, The Chive – will feature two discussions on entrepreneurship and the business of beer.
The statement “I’m going blond” doesn’t usually imply the long term. Maybe a brunette seeks brief, superficial change to counter the monotony of stylistic routine. Perhaps she just wants to look like Kim Novak. Or Lance Bass. But no matter the motive, going blond is typically seen as something temporary. It remains to be seen if the beer industry should consider Guinness’ recent release of Guinness Blonde American Lager as an act of whimsy.
How do you earn wholesaler attention if you’re a small craft beer brand trying to compete in today’s crowded marketplace? “Elbow grease and shoe leather,” says John Bryant, a partner at No-Li Brewhouse, based in Spokane, Washington. Make that axel grease. Bryant will put about 50,000 miles on his truck this year, driving all over the Pacific Northwest to hand-sell his company’s portfolio.
Based on recent sales data, one might deduce that on-premise consumption of craft beer is growing at the expense of premium light options. Taking a closer look at third quarter numbers, however, it appears that beer sales in restaurants and bars are experiencing a lull across the category. On-premise volume sales of premium light beer dipped by 1.9 percent through the first 10 months of 2014, as compared to the same time period in the previous year.
When Yuengling announced it would be launching into Massachusetts and Rhode Island earlier this year, Narragansett Beer president Mark Hellendrung expected sales to take a hit. The question was whether it would sink the brand. Hellendrung feared that sales of his company’s flagship lager — which makes up about 75 percent of ‘Gansett’s total production — would decline.
Cigar City’s search for a second production facility took the company to the Carolinas this week. As reported this morning by the Citizen Times, Joey Redner, founder of the Florida-based craft brewery, has been scouting locations in Western North Carolina as well as in Upstate South Carolina, in hopes of finding a place to build a new brewery comparable in size to its flagship facility in Tampa.
Continuing to build out a footprint on the eastern half of the country, Deschutes Brewery has announced plans to expand distribution throughout Washington D.C. and northern Virginia early next month. The brewery, headquartered out of Bend, Ore., has signed agreements with Premium Distributors — part of the Reyes Beverage Group — in both markets.
During next week’s Brew Talks meetup, Brewbound’s Dave Eisenberg will sit down with a trio of local beer industry members to discuss some of the legislative issues impacting Texas’ craft brewers. Joining the discussion will be Jester King managing partner Ron Extract, Independence Brewing co-founder Amy Cartwright and Texas Craft Brewers Guild executive director, Charles Vallhonrat.
Craft brewers from all over the country are putting their weight behind an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposal that would extend the federal government’s power to enforce the Clean Water Act. In total, 40 craft brewers have teamed up with the Natural Resources Defense Council to push for the proposed rule, which aims to clarify the EPA’s regulation parameters relating to small bodies of water.
