Brewbound Podcast

The Brewers Association’s Craft Brewers Conference (CBC) rolled into Philadelphia this week – and so did the Brewbound Podcast On Location Studio. In this episode of the Brewbound Podcast, the team shares their early reads on a week in which the vibes seem high compared to previous years. Zoe recaps the opening keynote speech by Unreasonable Hospitality author and former restaurateur Will Guidara, including his hyper-experiential approach to customer service and what a “dream weaver” is and whether you should be concerned that your server is eavesdropping on you. But first, Justin provides details on Firestone Walker and Duvel USA striking an agreement to acquire the Stone Brewing brand and four California taprooms from Sapporo USA – just under four years after the Japanese brewing giant acquired the San Diego craft brewery. Justin, Jess and Zoe dig into what the deal means for craft market share in California, how the combined company plans to approach distribution and which taprooms are on the move, as well as what this means for Sapporo in the U.S. and what happens with the Escondido production brewery. The trio also share takeaways from Brewbound’s party at Love City Brewing. 

How did craft close out Q1 in scans? In this episode, the Brewbound team convenes to discuss the early read on trends in off-premise retailers with the first three months of 2026 in the books. The conversation shifts to the latest platform builders, as Oklahoma City’s Coop Ale Works and Dallas’ Four Corners Brewing have created the Frontier Beverage Collective. Meanwhile, Abita Brewing Company is rechristening itself as the Abita Beverage Group, targeting 170,000 barrels this year, and potential mergers and acquisitions. Then the focus turns to new BrewDog owner Tilray Brands’ Q3 earnings report and future plans with the Scottish craft beer brand in the fold. Justin, Jess and Zoe discuss BrewDog’s identity without its “punk” ethos, which now includes a residency in the Hamptons. The show wraps with a conversation about the “Daycap,” following a Business Insider story on bev-alc brands targeting daytime occasions via some creative marketing to younger LDA consumers. . Is this really a thing with Gen Z? Listen here or on your preferred podcasting platform.

Brewers Association president and CEO Bart Watson believes the Craft Brewers Conference works best when it’s “the big-tent event that everybody is coming to and connecting with.” On the latest edition of the Brewbound Podcast, Watson explained that he views the largest annual gathering of craft brewers (April 20-22 in Philadelphia) in four buckets: Commerce via the BrewExpo trade show, where brewers connect with suppliers and learn about trends; Education, with a host of new voices on the speaker roster this year; Networking, with a more intentional approach and dedicated sessions; And fun. “CBC should be that week where you do all four of those things,” he said. “But you come back recharged, energized with new ideas, new energy.” The BA’s membership base is primarily made up of brewpubs and taprooms, making hospitality and customer traffic “the thing that makes or breaks their businesses,” he explained. “Craft is gonna win or lose with people wanting to come into breweries and then having a great experience or not having a great experience,” Watson continued. As such, hospitality will be a key theme of this year’s event, and the BA has tapped restaurateur Will Guidara, author of Unreasonable Hospitality, to give the event’s opening keynote speech. “He’s like a hospitality business ‘Ted Lasso,’” Watson said. “He really brings a spirit and a positivity that is going to be welcomed in craft right now as people try to lean in, do better, grow in what’s a challenging time but one where many people are still finding opportunities to thrive.” Watson offered more insights in the interview, including the state of the industry. Before the interview, Jess and Justin recap a wild week of M&A, including Molson Coors finally nabbing its spirts-based RTD in Monaco/Atomic Brands and a flurry of big distributor consolidations with Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits, Anheuser-Busch InBev, Reyes Beverage Group and Republic National Distributing Company (RNDC). Listen here or on your preferred podcast platform.

A new year means it’s Brewbound’s annual roundtable conversation with our peers in beer industry journalism. This year, the Brewbound team is joined by Kate Bernot, lead analyst for Feel Goods Insights, and David Steinman, VP and executive editor of Beer Marketer’s Insights. The discussion covers the biggest bev-alc news stories of 2025, including middle-tier consolidation, overall category health and consumer sentiment. Although full-year scan data has yet to arrive, the beer category is poised to finish 2025 with low- to moderate-single-digit declines in dollar sales and volume, if the trends of the first 11 months hold. “We’re looking at decline after decline after decline – it’s something like 30 million barrels down from our recent peak,” Steinman said, adding that “some of that was inflated from the pandemic gains.” “It felt like it was going to normalize at least multiple times over, and it just keeps on declining at this rate,” he continued. “It’s hard to really put a finger on exactly one thing, but it’s easy to look at the broad-brush of impacts on the trends, and it’s just a tougher business now than it really ever has been for a consistent stretch.” The usual suspects of health and wellness trends, Gen Zs’ alleged broad aversion to alcohol and the rise of intoxicating hemp dominate conversations elsewhere, but Bernot posited that there’s something bigger at play. “The story that maybe went under-discussed for me last year was the broader macroeconomic factors going on in the U.S. and the pressure on the average consumer and how that fits into the choices people are making,” she said. “We hear so much about health. We hear so much about cannabis, THC, etc, competing categories. “I just didn’t hear enough about how pressured the average U.S. consumer feels,” Bernot continued. “We’ve known for a long time that well-off Americans are carrying a lot of water for the U.S. economy, but they can’t do it forever, and especially not in general CPG. You can only go out to a restaurant so many times. You only need so many cases of beer if you’re a wealthy family.” In addition to high-level impacts on the beer business, the conversation also explored granular topics, such as the rise of Guinness in the on-premise, seismic shifts in California distribution and Anheuser-Busch InBev’s growing strength in beyond beer. Listen here or on your preferred podcast platform.

Brewbound Live 2025 is in the books! Podcast co-hosts Zoe Licata and Jessica Infante recap this year’s conference. Then, Karl Strauss Brewing (San Diego, CA) co-founder and CEO Chris Cramer joins Brewbound editor Justin Kendall for this week’s featured interview. The conversation was recorded at the California Craft Beer Summit last month in Irvine, CA, hosted by the California Craft Brewers Association. Cramer brought his signature sunny disposition to the chat, and discussed Karl Strauss’s current trends, brewpub traffic and long-running partnership with Disneyland’s California Adventure. “In general, our industry seems to be outperforming the rest of beverage-alcohol, which is not part of the current narrative,” Cramer said. “For each of us as craft brewers here in this state, our greatest opportunity is looking into ourselves and seeing what we can authentically own as a brand and communicating that to our consumers and our fans and then helping them share that joy with others.” He urged California craft brewers to take pride in the significance they have in the state’s culture and economy, which is a cornerstone for the nation’s craft brewing industry. Before the interview, Zoe and Jess highlight panel discussions they moderated during Brewbound Live, including a conversation about the bev-alc segments still drawing interest from the investment community. They also discuss recent beer industry news, including Anheuser-Busch InBev’s plan to sell one brewery and close two more, November Circana off-premise data and the North Carolina community’s reaction to the arrest of Sycamore Brewing’s co-founder. Programming note: the Brewbound Podcast will not publish an episode on December 24, but will return on December 31. Listen to the episode here or on your preferred podcast platform:

How does an ready-to-drink (RTD) brand that was built on the beach translate to other seasons? Surfside, Stateside Vodka’s hard iced tea and lemonade canned cocktail brand, is betting big on sports this fall. Stateside co-founders CEO Clem Pappas and president Matt Quigley joined the Brewbound Podcast to discuss the brand’s meteoric rise, its partnerships across college football and professional hockey and baseball and the newly rechristened Stateside Live!, an entertainment hub at the South Philadelphia Sports Complex where the city’s professional sports teams play. Year-to-date through mid-September, Surfside’s depletions (sales to retailers) reached nearly 8 million cases, about a 150% increase over last year. “We budgeted to be up about 100% on the Surfside brand, and so we’re doing a little bit better than that,” Pappas said. “As we’ve gone through the year and started to lap some bigger and bigger comps, the percentages have slowed down, but the case and the dollar gains have continued to increase, so I think overall, we’ve exceeded expectations.” Surfside rolled out in 2022 and made a bigger splash in 2023 in the brand’s hometown of Philadelphia and at the nearby Jersey Shore. With 100 calories, no carbonation and real iced tea or lemonade blended with premium vodka, Surfside stood out in a sea of hard seltzers. Strong sales trends and positive feedback in the brand’s early days gave the team the confidence it needed to ignore standard bev-alc practices of “go slow on your expansion” and “one territory at a time,” Pappas said. ​​”We really felt like we had a tiger by the tail, and we foresaw that this could be one of the next big things,” he continued. Inspiration struck during rejected sales pitches for Stateside’s vodka soda RTD, which is “extremely popular in our home market,” but failed to gain traction beyond Philadelphia because there was so much competition, Pappas said. Surfside was unlike anything other brands were introducing. “We felt like, ‘Hey, we got something, and opportunity is not a lengthy visitor, and so let’s go out and push this,’” he said. “It’s been an ambitious strategy, and it’s been difficult at times, and it hasn’t been without its stumbles, but ultimately, I think we made the right decision. “We’re in a position where everybody’s pouring into this category, it’s the hot category,” Pappas continued. “We’re in that gold rush phase of the life cycle of this category, and I’m glad we went as fast as we did, because we’d probably be boxed out of a lot of places at this point if we hadn’t.” Prior to the interview, Zoe and Jess break down recent news stories, including the abrupt shutdown of brewpub chain Iron Hill and storied cider maker Martinelli’s pivot to bev-alc. Listen here or on your preferred podcasting platform.

On the latest Brewbound Podcast, the Brewbound team closes the book on a lackluster selling season. Brewbound senior reporter Zoe Licata breaks down the final round of off-premise data, with a letdown from the historically sales boosting summer beer occasions. Zoe along with Brewbound editor Justin Kendall and managing editor Jessica Infante also recap the latest 3 Up, 3 Down quarterly report from 3 Tier Beverages, noting a few bright spots through the halfway point of the year, including alternative packaging styles such as smaller can formats. Plus, the team also hits the latest hot topics, including a major packaging change for Canada’s Moosehead and the ensuing consumer backlash; a Denver brewery’s closing announcement unlike any other; Iron Hill’s decision to shutter three brewpubs; recent taproom consumer trends; and Boston Beer choosing a side in the Team Conrad versus Team Jeremiah debate in an effort to tap into Gen Z culture. And a bonus: More tomato canning talk than you’d expect. Listen here or on your preferred podcast platform.