Napa Smith Brewery & Winery produced fewer than 500 barrels when Smoke Wallin started there in 2010. In 18 months, Wallin took Napa Smith from distribution in California alone to placements in 32 states. Soon into the expansion, Wallin realized that the brewery’s quick growth couldn’t match its infrastructure.
On Tuesday, when a panel featuring Dogfish Head founder Sam Calagione, Anheuser-Busch president Luiz Edmond, Crown Imports president Bill Hackett, MillerCoors CEO Tom Long and Heineken USA CEO Dolf van den Brink took the stage to address thousands of U.S. beer distributors, it was with an eye toward ways to lessen the bleeding.
Craft Brew Alliance has a straightforward goal in 2014: Satisfy more consumers, at more times, in more locations with more distinct craft beer offerings than any other craft beer competitor. It plans to do more with less, reducing its SKUs by 27 percent and focusing on seven core brands.
To kick off Craft Brew Alliance’s first-ever national distributor meeting, CBA-Con, held today in Las Vegas, president Andy Thomas asked the company’s roughly 500 Anheuser-Busch wholesale partners a question. “Is poker a game of skill or a game of luck,” he said. “Some of the best players will tell you that it is 100 percent… Read more »
Continuing its systematic approach to distribution expansion, Deschutes Brewery yesterday announced it would enter Nebraska this month. The Bend, Ore.-based brewery has signed a wholesale agreement with Johnson Brothers Liquor Company and plans to launch in the Cornhusker state with a series of events beginning October 15.
Sierra Nevada Brewing is expanding its business operations to include a new on-premise retail location in Berkeley, Calif. The space, named the “Torpedo Room” after its signature hopping device and the current best-selling IPA in the U.S., is scheduled to open in November.
Like a modern day gold rush, Americans all over the country are leaving behind the daily grind of their 9-to-5 jobs to chase dreams of owning a beer company. But with one new craft beer operation sprouting up every day, some of the more grizzled beer industry veterans are beginning to talk of a so-called… Read more »
The Glass Packaging Institute (GPI) announced the winners of its 2013 Clear Choice Awards on Tuesday, recognizing a number of consumer packaged food and beverage companies for their achievements in innovative glass packaging. Two craft beer companies — Craft Brew Alliance (CBA) and Green Flash Brewing — were honored during the 2013 Pack Expo, an… Read more »
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.”
