Chalk up another win for Wirtz Beverage Group as it tries to establish a toehold in the Chicago craft scene. Ballast Point Brewing & Spirits announced yesterday that it will extend an existing distribution agreement with Wirtz to include two new markets: Illinois and Minnesota. Wirtz, which is headquartered in Chicago, currently operates distributorships in… Read more »
In supermarkets last year, craft breweries logged approximately $32.6 million from can sales alone—a 168 percent increase from 2011. The major players in craft’s boom played a significant role in this success, as explained by Dan Wandel, senior vice president of beverage alcohol client solutions for Symphony IRI, a Chicago-based market research firm.
While bars and fine dining restaurants have caught on to the craft beer boom, casual restaurants are lagging behind, according to data provider GuestMetrics. Pulling from a database of more than $8 billion in sales from 2012, GuestMetrics found that craft beer accounted for 28 percent of overall beer sales in fine dining restaurants, 22 percent of beer sales in bars, and only 20 percent of beer sales in casual restaurants.
By spreading its footprint in supermarkets and convenience stores, craft beer continued its strong growth in 2012, seizing a greater share of the beer category. Dan Wandel, senior vice president of beverage alcohol client solutions for Symphony IRI, a Chicago-based market research firm, validated craft’s growth with statistics he shared as the featured guest of… Read more »
A number of packaging changes are on tap for Golden Road Brewing, the Los Angeles-based craft brewery that first launched in cans in January 2012. Co-founder Meg Gill said that while the vision for the Golden Road brand was present during the company’s first year, the execution on its canned packages was not. “You live… Read more »
Innovative beer styles sprout from varying inspirations. Sometimes, they derive from a brewer’s unparalleled creativity and fearlessness. Other times, things just run amok. Such was the case for Rocky Mountain Oyster Stout from Denver-based Wynkoop Brewing Company, when all it took for the buzz to develop was for brewmaster Andy Brown to jiggle some bull testicles on camera.
Add New Ulm, Minn.-based August Schell Brewing Company to the long list of small breweries investing in expansion projects. Kyle Marti, Schell’s director of sales and marketing, told Brewbound.com on Wednesday that the company plan to break ground in May on a $2 million expansion project that will increase brewing capacity by 100,000 barrels before… Read more »
Fresh off a year of 50 percent revenue growth, the addition of a second brewing facility in North Carolina and successful rollouts in four new markets, Oskar Blues announced yesterday that it will again expand distribution, adding Michigan as the company’s 31st state. Oskar Blues will launch in the Great Lakes state on March 4… Read more »
The steps toward brewery expansion hold consistent themes, regardless of scale or vision. A nanobrewer hoping to seize the attention of a region and a craft brewer with limitless goals often follow a similar, occasionally subconscious mantra: every day, grow incrementally. To that end, we sat down with Heather Sanborn of Rising Tide Brewery and Luke Livingston of Baxter Brewing Co. to hear their thoughts about brewery development in the latest edition of Brewbound’s Brew Talks.
Despite limited distribution in the U.S., Spokane, Wash.-based No-Li Brewhouse announced that it will begin exporting its beer to Sweden. John Bryant, No-Li’s co-founder, told Brewbound.com that the decision to export the company’s beer over 4,000 miles away from home was largely based on its success in international competitions.
One of the country’s oldest breweries will soon drop anchor at a secondary production facility. Anchor Brewing will begin construction on its new Pier 48 brewery in late 2014 and expects to complete the buildout by late 2015. The new facility, to be located across from the San Francisco Giants baseball stadium, will quadruple the… Read more »
Founders Brewing Company recently announced information regarding four limited-edition beers that will rotate through its catalog. The brewery’s All Day IPA will be released on March 1 and will be available on shelves and on draft through September. The IPA is brewed with a mix of malts, grains and hops, packs a 4.7 percent ABV… Read more »
It’s been more than a year since Jacob McKean, the former Stone Brewing Co. communications specialist, quit his job at the country’s 11th largest craft brewery to launch his own craft beer company — Modern Times Beer. In that time, McKean has raised more than $1 million in investment money, signed the lease on a… Read more »
After years of refusing to put his beer in cans, Jim Koch — the founder of Boston Beer Company (BBC) — believes he’s finally found a package worthy of his brewery’s flagship offering, Boston Lager. Slated for an early summer release, the “Sam Can,” as Boston Beer’s brewers have termed it, is the result of… Read more »
