After 35 years, Massachusetts-based brewpub Cambridge Brewing Co. (CBC) has announced it will shut its doors at the end of 2024.

Circle K owner Alimentation Couche-Tard has offered a “friendly proposal” to acquire the Japanese operator of 7-Eleven in a move that could mark major consolidation of the global convenience channel. If successful, the combined entity would become one of the largest retail businesses in the world.

Stevenson announced the news Friday on LinkedIn, posting a photo of herself with JuneShine co-founders Greg Serraro and Forrest Dein, and writing: “Could not be more excited to join Greg, Forrest and the JuneShine Team! So many exciting things to come!”

The nice things about hosting a massive political convention in your state capital are that you get beers named after you … and that the mayor does most of the work anyway.

Earlier this month, an article in Food & Wine proclaimed craft spirits in crisis, kicking off a tense debate between wholesalers and craft spirit representatives about the root causes of the challenges facing distillers.

New Orleans-based Cajun Fire Brewing is the new owner of a 20-barrel brewhouse.

In this issue, Sierra Nevada lays out its 2025 plans, A-B makes a deal to sell distro branches in MA and OH, Oregon’s hop crop declines double digits, NIQ offers a halftime bev-alc report on the Brewbound Podcast and Zoe shares her Bahamian beer haul.

Party punch maker BeatBox hosted its first national sales meeting in Houston, which had the feel of a Meow Wolf, with a faux convenience store decked out in neon, a trippy giant mushroom-covered hard tea garden, a Las Vegas-themed area with casino games, a lab for new innovations with “scientists” that looked strikingly like Rick of Rick and Morty Adult Swim fame and the usual presentations about the coming year.

Rachel Kiley was the first-ever employee at Atlanta-based Monday Night Brewing when it opened in 2012, joining as sales director and working her way up to chief operating officer. After helping lead the brewery’s expansion to six locations across four states and 21,000 barrels of beer produced in 2023, Kiley has stepped down to become CEO of Sneaky Spirits, the brand she founded with her husband, Peter.

New Belgium Brewing eliminated the roles of seven employees Thursday as part of a reorganization of its sales and marketing structure, a spokesperson told Brewbound.

While many annual business plans over the next couple months will likely include fourth-category innovations, Sierra Nevada is focused on continuing to innovate with “beer-flavored beer.”

Beverage-alcohol’s growing “fourth category” of flavor-first offerings are quickly becoming a “mega category,” NIQ VP of alcohol industry thought leadership Jon Berg shared on the latest edition of the Brewbound Podcast.

Anheuser-Busch InBev (A-B) has reached agreements to sell wholly owned distributor branches in Massachusetts and Ohio to independent A-B distributors in each state, the company announced today.

If craft beer had a Bizarro World, a place where everything was the opposite of its current state, it would be Williamsport, Pennsylvania, home of New Trail Brewing.