Boston Beer Company CEO Dave Burwick will step down and retire from the company’s board of directors, effective April 1. Michael Spillane, a Nike executive and lead director on Boston Beer’s board of directors, will supplant him.
Boston Beer Company’s second quarter earnings call in July set the stage for a tumultuous third quarter that saw the company pull its financial guidance and anticipate write-off costs related to excess hard seltzer inventory, which was followed by a rush of investor lawsuits. Although the Q2 earnings report left analysts flummoxed and disappointed, the company’s third quarter earnings report came with less of a jolt but more of the residual sting of the slowdown in hard seltzer growth and lowered expectations.
Truly Hard Seltzer will say g’day to a new market in February 2022. Boston Beer Company will partner with the Campari Group to bring Truly to Australia next year, the company announced today.
PepsiCo CEO Ramon Laguarta emphasized that the soft drink maker has “been investing a lot in R&D” and believes its “pipeline is strong” during Tuesday’s third quarter call with investors and analysts.
Boston Beer Company is opening a Truly Hard Seltzer taproom in Downtown Los Angeles early next year.
Boston Beer Company’s hard seltzer woes are spilling over into the legal system. The maker of Truly Hard Seltzer, the second best-selling hard seltzer on the market, is now facing a proposed class action lawsuit for allegedly failing to disclose the deceleration in sales of Truly to investors.
Boston Beer Company’s innovation pipeline continues to pump out new brands as the fall approaches, announcing today a planned nationwide launch in November of Bevy Long Drink, a sparkling refresher inspired by a traditional Finnish cocktail that consists of gin, grapefruit soda, and tonic. However, Boston’s version of the beverage, checking in at 5.8% ABV, won’t contain spirits.
Despite recent slowdowns in hard seltzer sales trends, Boston Beer chief marketing officer Lesya Lysyj remains confident that the bubbly beverage and Truly Hard Seltzer are not going anywhere. “The category has become a mega category, and the growth is not done yet,” she told Brewbound.
Hard seltzer’s late summer slowdown has pushed several financial services firms to adjust their forecast for the sparkling segment’s performance. “We are incrementally more cautious on the beer and hard seltzer category based on feedback from our beer distributor contacts in our new proprietary ‘Beverage Bytes’ survey,” Goldman Sachs equity research analyst Bonnie Herzog wrote in a report published today.
Boston Beer Company and PepsiCo Beverages today announced a new partnership project: “HARD MTN DEW.”
Boston Beer Company adjusted its full-year forecast for shipments and depletions growth after a significant slowdown in the hard seltzer segment in the second quarter. The company previously projected full-year growth of 40-50% in shipments (sales to wholesalers) and depletions (sales to retailers), but has trimmed that projection to 25-40%. Its depletions increased 24% during Q2, decelerating by half from Q1’s growth of 48%, according to remarks from founder and chairman Jim Koch in the quarterly earnings release. “To be totally honest, we’re surprised at the sharpness and the suddenness of the change in trajectory,” Koch said during a conference call with investors and analysts.
Boston Beer Company “overestimated the growth of the hard seltzer category in the second quarter” and the demand for the company’s Truly Hard Seltzer, CEO Dave Burwick said in a press release announcing the company’s Q2 earnings results.
Boston Beer Company and Beam Suntory today announced a joint venture to extend two of the companies’ most popular brands — Truly Hard Seltzer and Sauza tequila — across categories.
Black is Beautiful, a collaborative initiative started by Weathered Souls Brewing to fight police brutality and other injustices against people of color, has raised $2.2 million, according to a Facebook post by the San Antonio-basec craft brewery.
Just how big a part of the beer category could hard seltzer be by 2025? It depends on who you ask. During this month’s Beverage Forum, Anthony Von Mandl and Jim Koch, the leaders of the companies that produce the two largest hard seltzer brands, White Claw and Truly, respectively, offered differing projections, according to analysts’ reports.
