A small piece of Portsmouth, N.H. is headed west. Smuttynose Brewing today announced new distribution agreements with two of L. Knife & Son Companies craft-focused wholesale operations in California: San Diego-based Craft Beer Guild Distributing of California and Los Angeles area’s El Dorado Distributing.
One month after announcing the sale of its Coney Island brand to craft beer incubator Alchemy & Science (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Boston Beer Company), Shmaltz Brewing today announced a number of new distribution agreements. The company has signed with 10 new wholesalers across eight different states including New York, New Jersey, Minnesota, North Carolina,… Read more »
Like teenage girls trying to decide what to wear to the prom, craft brewers often obsess over how to best present their brands to their ever-finicky consumers, as well as to retailers trying to differentiate their shelf sets from competitors’. Should upstart craft breweries venture into an overcrowded craft beer market in 22 oz. or… Read more »
American craft brewers, especially some of the founding fathers at Boston Beer Company and Redhook, for example, have culled and modernized recipes from the Germans, Belgians, English and Irish, to name a few. As a result, many forms of the faraway beer styles can be found in the U.S. In certain cases, American brewers seem to have digested the influence and gone their own way.
In an effort to compile a comprehensive catalog of craft beers currently available to consumers, Brewbound.com has launched a self-service portal for craft brewers. With at least one new craft brewery opening every day in the U.S., Brewbound wanted to make it easier for new and existing breweries to update their company information on Brewbound.com.
First it was brats, now its bedrooms. Dogfish Head founder Sam Calagione just can’t seem to stay away from opportunities to extend the Dogfish brand beyond beer. The brewery today announced that it has taken over ownership of the property and plans to redesign the lodging facility with plenty of “Dogfish vibes.”
With the summer selling season in the rearview, many craft brewers have shifted their focus back to distribution expansion, announcing new wholesaler agreements across the country. The Massachusetts Beverage Alliance (MBA) today announced two new partnerships with Morrisville, Vt.-based Lost Nation Brewing and Cambridge, Mass.-based Bantam Cider.
Despite declining overall beer shipments in Massachusetts through the first six months of 2013, craft beer sales continued their upward surge according to recent data from the Beer Distributors of Massachusetts, a trade association advocating on behalf of family-owned wholesalers.
Aiming to capitalize on the growing demand for craft beer and an increasing need for commercial brewing space, two New York City-based entrepreneurs are planning to redevelop the defunct Neuweiler Brewery in Allentown, Penn. and turn it into a new contract brewing facility.
For the past two years, Brooklyn Brewery has remained steadfast in its commitment to grow organically in existing markets despite repeated attempts from wholesalers looking to lure the company into new states. “Our 25 percent growth this year has come organically,” said Robin Ottaway, the company’s vice president of sales. “At the end of this… Read more »
California Craft Brewers Association (CCBA) executive director, Tom McCormick, had a message for small brewers attending Wednesday evening’s Brew Talks meetup in San Francisco. “I am here to prepare everybody for what will play out to be a pretty epic political battle,” he said.
Last Friday, Josh Noel and Paul Sullivan of The Chicago Tribune reported that the Cubs made Anheuser-Busch (A-B) their exclusive beer sponsor in 2014 and beyond. The Cubs also plan to install a 650-square-foot Budweiser sign in the right-field bleachers.
“That’s bad new for Old Style,” Noel and Sullivan write, “which has had an affiliation with the team for more than 60 years, as well as for Wrigleyville rooftop owners.”
It’s a trend seen since the emergence of craft: brewers christening their beers with inventive and catchy names that often play on ingredients, formulation or seasonal release. In the case of Dogfish Head’s Wet Hop American Summer, it’s all of the above. And so when it came time to name its first year-round IPA, Sierra Nevada chose a similar path with its choice of “Torpedo,” which takes its name from the brewery’s innovative “Hop Torpedo” device.
Would an IPA by any other name still taste as hoppy? And more, if it weren’t labeled as an IPA, would anyone buy it? It’s a question many craft breweries are exploring and some, it seems, are banking on the continued growth of the style and the name, which is a shorter version of India… Read more »
