Big Beer

Heineken USA (HUSA) will halt shipments of all draft products to five states for the next year, a company spokesperson told Brewbound. Those states include Vermont, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota. The Lagunitas brand, which Heineken wholly acquired in May 2017, is excluded from the draft cuts.

Constellation Brands’ beer business topped $7.456 billion in net sales, an +11% year-over-year increase (YoY), during its 2023 fiscal year, which ended February 28, the company reported today during its full-year and fourth-quarter earnings report.

Nearly five years after it opened, Diageo will cease the majority of production later this spring at what was its first Guinness production brewery in the U.S. since 1954.

Dogfish Head co-founder Sam Calagione has been hitting the road to promote the company’s new year-round offering Citrus Squall, a higher ABV beer-cocktail hybrid, and its spirits-based canned cocktails at retailers across the country.

After a decade of leading Diageo, CEO Sir Ivan Menezes will retire as CEO and exit the company’s board of directors, effective June 30, the beer and spirits giant behind Guinness and Johnnie Walker announced today.

Columbia Distributing, one of the National Beer Wholesalers Association’s (NBWA) largest members, has resigned from the trade group “effective immediately.”

A federal jury has found that Constellation Brands’ production of products such as Corona Hard Seltzer and Modelo Ranch Water does not violate the company’s licensing agreement with Anheuser-Busch InBev (A-B).

Dutch beer giant Heineken N.V. has yet to halt sales of some of its brands in Russia, despite promises made in March 2022, due to local bureaucracy “beyond its control,” Reuters reported.

More consumers plan to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day this year compared to 2022, according to data insights firm Numerator.

Not content to rest on Modelo’s laurels as the country’s No. 2 beer brand, Constellation aims to continue to raise consumer awareness, which increased +43% in 2022, VP of brand marketing Greg Gallagher said. “We have a ton of room to grow and we’ll have to continue to find new ways to attract more drinkers,” he said.

It’s not a matter of if but when Modelo Especial will become the nation’s No. 1 beer brand in dollar sales, Constellation Brands Beer Division president Jim Sabia told wholesalers Tuesday during the company’s Gold Network Summit in Las Vegas.

After seven years at Boston Beer Company, CFO Frank Smalla will exit in mid-April, the company announced in an 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Jon London has returned to Boston Beer Company as brand director of Angry Orchard, the hard cider brand he helped launch more than a decade ago.