Beyond Beer

A lawsuit filed against Molson Coors’ Vizzy Hard Seltzer is nearing completion, after a federal judge said last week he plans to approve the company’s plan to settle with plaintiffs for $9.5 million.

Combining coffee, non-alcoholic beer and upcycled barley rice protein, the brains behind Super Coffee and Athletic Brewing believe they’ve created a product their core consumer base never knew they needed.

Non-alcoholic beer, wine and spirits had their time in the spotlight during Dry January, while high ABV ciders are taking off. In this second installment of the quarterly series, 3 Tier product team consultant Stephanie Roatis shared three insights on industry growth, as well as three underperforming areas across bev-alc scan data.

Boston-based Harpoon Brewery is expanding beyond bev-alc and into cannabis, announcing the launch of Rec. Weed, a THC-infused non-alcoholic beverage.

Dry January is over but health and wellness trends aren’t slowing down and neither are sales of NA versions of alcoholic beverages. The work has just begun too for dedicated non-alcoholic beer, wine and spirits retailers.

Legislative efforts to change how spirits-based ready-to-drink (RTD) beverages are categorized gathered momentum this week, as lawmakers in Texas introduced a new bill that would give greater market access to packaged spirits-based cocktails under 17% ABV, allowing them to be sold in grocery and convenience stores, while a Washington State Senate committee passed a bill to adjust how the products are taxed.

Buffalo Trace, the producer of the popular Pappy Van Winkle bourbons, will double its whiskey production in the coming days.

Fast-growing non-alcoholic beer maker Athletic Brewing’s valuation is at just under $500 million, according to a Forbes profile released today.

Boston Beer is hitting the reset button with Truly Hard Seltzer in an effort to reverse the brand’s negative trends. Ahead of today’s Q4 and full-year earnings report, Boston Beer announced it would release new packaging, a new advertising campaign and communicate “clearer messaging” for Truly this spring as the company looks to grow Truly’s share and hold the No. 2 position in the segment behind White Claw.

Data released last week by the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS) showed that for the first time spirits revenues outpaced beer, but how did craft spirits measure up? At last weekend’s American Craft Spirits Association Conference in Portland, data experts shared insight into the segment’s growth and opportunities.

Employees at Anheuser-Busch (A-B) InBev-owned Widmer Brothers Brewing have voted to join Teamsters Local 162, the union announced. Stony Creek Brewery has been approved by its hometown of Branford, Connecticut to construct a new tank farm, which would expand the company’s brewing capacity from 48,000 barrels, to 100,000 barrels.

For the first time, spirit revenues have eclipsed beer, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS) in its annual economic briefing today.

Data and economy experts from 3 Tier Beverages, NielsenIQ’s CGA and the National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA) gave attendees insights into the state of the bev-alc industry and cider’s potential growth opportunities during the 13th annual CiderCon, held last week in Chicago.

Hard seltzer’s share of total beer category dollar sales reached its lowest point since the beginning of the pandemic in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to Jefferies’ most recent hard seltzer dashboard.