Brewbound Podcast

With the release of the Brewers Association’s latest consumer survey, the Brewbound team discusses what it means to be an “omni-biborous” consumer, a term coined by chief economist Bart Watson. The team dives into the survey, which found that the number of legal drinking age adults who drink craft beer has reached its highest point, as has the number of people who say they drink craft beer weekly. The conversation also covers Fourth of July data from Drizly, the latest shipment and import numbers, the latest acquisition by mega beer wholesaler Reyes, and more. Listen to the episode above and on popular platforms such as iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and Spotify. New episodes of the Brewbound Podcast are published every other Thursday (or so). Check Brewbound’s upcoming events schedule for future podcast episodes and streaming video programming. Email [email protected] with questions and feedback.

Alva Mather and Nichole Shustack of McDermott, Will & Emery — a law firm with one of the country’s leading beverage alcohol practices — joined the Brewbound Podcast to break down all the pressing legal issues facing the beer industry in 2021. Between the rise of e-commerce and the nebulous definition of hard seltzer for tax and regulatory purposes, there’s a lot that brewers need to know to remain on the right side of the law this year. Pandemic-driven shutdowns have led to expanded privileges for craft breweries to offer home delivery and shipping services, which have met pushback from distributors in some states. “My perspective here is that the three-tier system is here to stay, but it’s adaptable,” Mather said. “And we’ve seen that during the pandemic.” As consumers are shopping online for alcohol at record-shattering rates, brewers have upped their e-commerce game, linking to platforms such as Drizly and Instacart that can deliver beer to drinkers’ homes in under an hour. Shustack and Mather cover necessary information for these new trade practices, which are regulated differently state by state. “Brewers should keep their ears to the ground and understand what the dynamics are in the state and who they’re actually operating with, because if you contract with a third party, that’s not where your liability ends,” Shustack explained. “You have some obligation to make sure that you’re contracting with the right third party and they have all the protocols to make the delivery — for example, age verification.” Listen to the episode above and on popular platforms such as iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and Spotify. New episodes of the Brewbound Podcast are published every other Thursday. Check Brewbound’s upcoming events schedule for future podcast episodes and streaming video programming. Email [email protected] with questions, comments or suggestions for future shows and guests.

Prior to launching Athletic Brewing in 2017, co-founder Bill Shufelt spent about 12 years working in the hedge fund world. During that time, he found that drinking alcohol, staying up late and waking up early made it difficult to maintain a healthy lifestyle. So Shufelt went sober. And in the process of abstaining from the craft beers he had grown to love, Shufelt wondered why nobody was making a high-quality, non-alcoholic option for craft drinkers. His idea was to produce a fully fermented beer to under 0.5 percent ABV without the need for dealcoholization equipment. “If any of the traditional technologies worked, to make a good non-alcoholic beer, one of these very well-funded mega breweries or craft breweries would already be making it that way,” he said. Shufelt, along with co-founder John Walker, experimented with hundreds of batches of homebrew before dialing in their process. About a year ago, Athletic brought a range of non-alcoholic craft beer to market, from golden ales to goses. The company’s timing was perfect, as a growing number of consumers are beginning to cut back on boozing. According to Nielsen, 66 percent of legal-drinking-age consumers between the ages of 21 and 34 are making efforts to reduce their overall consumption. At the same time, 25 percent of beer drinkers are more interested in consuming alcoholic beverages that were produced with wellness in mind versus “a couple years ago,” the firm recently told Brewbound. So what does the future hold for non-alcoholic craft beer? “In the next five or 10 years, it’s going to be everywhere,” Shufelt contends. In episode 40 of the Brewbound Podcast, Shufelt discusses his outlook on the emerging non-alcoholic beer sector in the U.S., and the occasions in which his products — and others like it — play. Listen to episode 40 of the Brewbound Podcast above, as well as on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, and Soundcloud. New episodes of the Brewbound Podcast, which is co-hosted by Chris Furnari and Justin Kendall, are published every Thursday. Episode 41, featuring Matt Katase, the co-founder of The Brew Gentlemen, will be released on Thursday, June 20. For questions, comments or suggestions, please email [email protected]. Show Notes: 0:00 – 23:45: Chris Furnari and Justin Kendall introduce episode 40, discuss the Beer Institute’s annual meeting and share recent news 23:45 – 51:14: Furnari and Kendall interview Athletic Brewing co-founder Bill Shufelt 51:14 – 1:01:22: Furnari and Kendall share takeaways from the interview

The Brewers Association’s official assessment of 2018 craft production growth, brewery openings and closings, and other industry statistics won’t be released for a couple of weeks, but Brewbound Podcast listeners can get a sneak peek at the numbers in this week’s episode. BA chief economist Bart Watson joined Brewbound editors Chris Furnari and Justin Kendall in late January to share a few high-level insights, including his projections for 2018 and beyond. Based on the data available at the time of the interview, Watson said he expects beer production at BA-defined craft breweries to grow by about 4 percent in 2018, to more than 26 million barrels. He also projected that between 7,400 and 7,500 breweries operated in all or part of 2018 and that roughly 1,000 new breweries opened their doors last year. “If I had to project for 2019, I would project something pretty similar — about 1,000 openings,” he said. Nevertheless, about 3.5 percent of U.S. craft breweries shuttered in 2018, and Watson estimated the number of closures to be about 250. That figure would be an increase from the 165 breweries that closed their doors in 2017. “We haven’t seen a number spike up into the 500 or 1,000 range and so openings are still going to outpace closings, I think about four-to-one this year,” he said. But moving forward, Watson expects the brewery closings figure to rise, and potentially match the number of openings. “Next year, I’d probably think 300 or 350, and then a few more the year after that, until we see that opening and closing rate really pull back together like we saw in the late ’90s and early 2000s,” he said. In episode 28 of the Brewbound Podcast, Watson shares his early 2018 analysis and discusses the circumstances that have led to an increasing number of brewery closures in recent years. He also answers questions about the BA’s revised craft brewer definition, and the possible future impact of legal recreational cannabis on the alcohol segment. Listen to episode 28 of the Brewbound Podcast above, as well as on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, and Soundcloud. New episodes of the Brewbound Podcast, which is co-hosted by Furnari and Kendall, are published every Thursday. Episode 29, featuring Allagash Brewing founder Rob Tod, will be released on Thursday, March 28. For questions, comments or suggestions, please email [email protected]. Show Notes: 0:00 – 17:50: Chris Furnari and Justin Kendall introduce episode 28 and discuss the latest legislative and leadership updates in the beer industry. 18:50 – 53:50: Furnari and Kendall interview Bart Watson. 53:50 – 1:04:38: Furnari and Kendall share their takeaways from the interview and run down segments.

Speaking to hundreds of attendees who traveled to Santa Monica for the Brewbound Live business conference in November, Brooklyn Brewery CEO Eric Ottaway addressed a number of top-of-mind issues that beer industry professionals are keeping a close eye on as they prepare to flip their calendars to 2019. Chief among them, however, was increasing consumer interest in functional or “better-for-you” products such as low- or no-alcohol beer and kombucha. “I think that opportunity is enormous,” he said. In 2016, Brooklyn Brewery sold a minority stake to Kirin Brewery. The Japanese beer producer’s parent company, Kirin Holdings, already has “a number of investments in the health and wellness space,” Ottaway noted, and Brooklyn is “having some real interesting conversations” about how the broader consumer trend toward healthier lifestyles will impact beer. “The consumer is looking for ways to improve themselves, ways to improve their health and ways to live better, and I think that space is virtually unlimited,” he said. Ottaway believes that more beer companies need to “start thinking bigger,” and look beyond beer as a means of staying competitive. “If you look at some of the more successful companies that operate in the brewing space, they are actually multi-beverage, multi-segment, multi-brand companies,” he said, pointing to Boston Beer Company, which makes alcoholic tea and seltzer products, as well as hard cider, as an example. Ottaway’s comments at Brewbound Live came just days before Brooklyn Brewery launched its first alcohol-free beer, Special Effects, in Sweden. In episode 16 of the Brewbound Podcast, Brooklyn Brewery CEO Eric Ottaway discusses the growing consumer interest in low- and no-alcohol products, the overall state of the beer business, his company’s global partnership strategy and the shrinking international opportunities for U.S. craft breweries. Also in this episode: Brewbound editors Chris Furnari and Justin Kendall discuss the latest news, including information about Anheuser-Busch InBev’s recent partnership with Canadian cannabis company Tilray, layoffs at Oregon’s Deschutes Brewery, the Brewers Association’s “craft brewer” definition change and ongoing legal disputes for the Craft Beer Cellar retail franchise. Listen to episode 16 of the Brewbound Podcast above, as well as on iTunes. The episode is also available on Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, and Soundcloud. New episodes of the Brewbound Podcast, which is co-hosted by Furnari and Kendall, are published every Thursday. Episode 17, featuring Brewery Ommegang president Doug Campbell, will be released on Thursday, January 3, 2019. For questions, comments or suggestions, please email [email protected].