Brewbound Podcast

Von Ebert Brewing brewer Dashawn Agbonze sees himself as the “fun police” – a badge he wears proudly, much like the German brewers that he admires.“I’m always like, ‘Why are we doing this?’” Agbonze said on the latest edition of the Brewbound Podcast. “Ultimately, like the Germans, I don’t believe in magic. I need an explanation. Let’s talk it out. Part of that is, let’s train people so that everyone can see the same vision and we have the same goal because we know exactly how to get there.”Agbonze, a two-time Michael James Jackson Foundation for Brewing and Distilling (MJF) scholarship awardee, shares his journey climbing the ranks of the brewing industry and why he believes education is critical for up-and-coming brewers. “The education is important because it enables you to be in a controlled space to fail,” he explained. “You’re not putting a business on the line. You don’t have employees with families that you have to risk in order to learn that ‘Hey, a clean tank would make the beer that you want,’ or ‘Hey, contamination via your canning line can happen,’ or how to solve these problems in a safe space.”Failures in a learning environment become key lessons in training the next generation of brewers, Agbonze shares. Before the interview, the Brewbound team discusses the latest news, including a major departure from Whole Foods’ bev-alc team, an update on Pabst’s stolen beer, the Beer Institute’s latest beer supply data and FIFCO USA’s new owner and new/old name. Brewbound managing editor Jessica Infante also shares highlights from her trip to Asheville for the annual business planning meetings at Highland Brewing and Sierra Nevada. Listen here.

The summer selling season wraps up this weekend with Labor Day Monday, and one of the hottest segments of the summer has been hard sports drinks. Brewbound editor Justin Kendall and senior reporter Zoe Licata dive into the fast-growing segment and how their views have shifted on it over the last year. They look at who is leading the segment now and new entrants looking to fast-follow, including Boston Beer Company. The duo also recap several rounds of layoffs, including Sapporo USA’s wind-down of the Stone Brewing-branded locations in Escondido, California; Mark Anthony’s integration of the Finnish Long Drink and coming sales team cuts; and Diageo’s ongoing $1.2 billion restructuring effort hitting its NYC headquarters. Plus, Justin and Zoe discuss low-ABV beers (and Justin cracks Sierra Nevada’s new Go-Two IPA) and Pabst’s viral stolen beer marketing campaign. Listen here.

Fingers boozeletter author Dave Infante joins the Brewbound Podcast to deep dive Diageo’s ongoing restructuring and workforce slashing under CEO Sir Dave Lewis (aka “Drastic Dave” for his reputation for making big cuts at previous stops). Infante shares insights from his reporting and conversations with Diageo employees, many of whom wondered why the Guinness and Johnnie Walker maker was so slow to adapt to the modern bev-alc competitive landscape.“The frustration that I heard from current and former Diageo employees was mostly about why weren’t we doing this before we had to start laying everyone off,” Infante tells Brewbound editor Justin Kendall and managing editor Jessica Infante (no relation). “You don’t have to get to this point before you start pivoting to RTDs.”The trio also hit recent headlines, including Garage Beer and Liquid Death tapping into the real world animosity around data centers and BuzzBallz’s recent Pop-Tarts partnership.Jessica offered a theory on the BuzzBallz-Pop-Tarts team up: “Kids aren’t eating Pop-Tarts. You know who’s eating Pop-Tarts? Sad, elder millennials who can’t afford anything else and want a tiny treat. The moms who would be out marching on the capitol up in arms against this aren’t feeding that to their kids.”“They’re the ones who are intrigued by the BuzzBallz Pop-Tarts that they saw on Instagram,” Dave adds.“That’s definitely going into their Stanley tumblers,” Jess says.Listen here or on your preferred podcasting platform.

Does every beer need a non-alcoholic (NA) analog? The Brewbound team discusses on the latest episode of the Brewbound Podcast.As Molson Coors prepares to launch an NA version of Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy, Brewbound editor Justin Kendall questions whether the product is trend chasing or if consumers are clamoring for it. Managing editor Jessica Infante gets White Claw Zero flashbacks, while senior reporter Zoe Licata offers a different perspective after exploring NA ciders.The trio also analyze recent headlines, including:Samuel Adams taproom workers’ plans to unionize and Boston Beer’s response, so far;And B3 Beverage’s “complicated” partnerships, with a deal for Yards Brewing going forward and others falling through.Listen here.

The decade-long consent decree that allowed Anheuser-Busch InBev’s (A-B) MegaBrew merger with SABMiller to go forward expired in July, removing guardrails that had been placed on the world’s largest beer manufacturer by the Department of Justice to ensure competition in the marketplace.Chris Jones, managing director of Central Market Strategies, joins this week’s Brewbound Podcast to explore what competition looks like in a post-consent decree beer industry.Jones argues the consent decree did its job, creating a competitive environment that allowed new brands over the last decade such as Athletic Brewing, Mark Anthony Brands’ White Claw and Boston Beer’s Truly Hard Seltzer to become category leaders in non-alcoholic (NA) beer and hard seltzer, respectively, while also preventing A-B “from using its massive size as the world’s largest brewer to disrupt the market.”WIth the consent decree’s guardrails down, including the removal of an independent monitor who maintained compliance by handling claims of interference and coercion, there now exists “a lot more risk in the system of this market power and abuses of market power that could result from the size and scale of the largest brewer,” Jones said.Going forward, it will be important to track national market share in an already “highly concentrated market” and middle-tier consolidation in the years ahead, he added.Listen to the full conversation with Brewbound managing editor Jessica Infante here.Before the conversation, Brewbound editor Justin Kendall and senior reporter Zoe Licata join Jess to run through the latest news, including Lawson’s Finest Liquids’ first NA beer, what distributors say is on their cut lists, a distributor territory swap in the Northeast and “warm beer takes” on the latest NFL beer marketing.

Can a letter writing campaign save Deschutes’ co-branded Kirkland Signature Helles, the same way Brewbound's Jessica Infante saved her childhood zoo? The Brewbound team and weekend newsletter writer Sean McNulty discuss the end of the cult favorite lager on the latest edition of the Brewbound Podcast, including an outpouring of somber reactions to the news. Brewbound editor Justin Kendall recaps his conversation with Deschutes CEO Peter Skrbek and why he’s not sweating the decision as the company’s portfolio is growing. But could a public show of support from Costco members flip the decision? Jess shares that it worked for her hometown zoo. The team also shares their personal July 4 experiences, including a view from the Jersey Shore, and the mixed results by channel for the World Cup and surge of imported beer. Brewbound senior reporter Zoe Licata also explains why quality is a default expectation for consumers now, and shouldn’t be a marketing talking point in 2026. 

Athletic Brewing co-founder and CEO Bill Shufelt is “the most excited” he’s felt since founding the dedicated non-alcoholic (NA) beer brand.On the latest edition of the Brewbound Podcast, Shufelt shared what’s driving his hyped feeling, with a foundation he and co-founder John Walker laid about a decade ago. That foundation is built on a team of 300 co-workers, bicoastal brewing facilities, a strong distribution base for its core beers, a slate of new products hitting retailers and marketing campaigns beginning to ramp up.“I’m very bullish on the long-term health and growth of the category and our part in growing that,” Shufelt said. “It was very hard to get non-alcoholic beer from zero to 2% of beer, but there are actual retailers in the U.S. [where] non-alcoholic beer is touching up against 20% of their beer sales.”Those retailers lend credence to Shufelt’s belief that NA beer can be a much bigger part of the beer category. Shufelt explained that consumers are very early in the NA beer discovery curve, with the vast majority unaware how the product has changed in the last decade. Even with the stage set for growth, Shufelt acknowledged that Athletic still has work to do for the company and the segment to reach some of his loftier goals. For Athletic in particular, which holds around 22% of the NA beer segment, distribution remains its biggest opportunity. “In independents, no matter how much our distributors smile at us and tell us we’re a priority, we’re in like 10% of their independents,” Shufelt said. “And I can go into stores in almost any state in the country and look at a shelf that is controlled by our distributor that has five-plus non-alcoholic beer products on it, and Athletic will have none. There’s just such untapped distribution out there still.”For now, Shufelt is focused on driving Athletic and NA beer forward. But could the future include an IPO? An Athletic led by someone else? Shufelt said it’s possible, but he doesn't want to be on the outside looking in on an opportunity he was one of the few people to see.Before the interview, Justin, Jess and Zoe discuss the latest headlines, including the mixed results craft brewers are seeing from the World Cup, the American Cider Association co-locating its 2027 CiderCon conference with the Brewers Association’s Craft Brewers Conference, the closure of Nebraska’s largest craft brewery and the top new products of so far this year.