Four Black-owned craft beverage-alcohol brands are uniting in California to create a strategic alliance greater than the sum of its parts. The Circle of Crowns Beverage Group (CCBG) includes Inglewood-based Crowns and Hops, Fresno-based Full Circle Brewing and its sister brands Speakeasy Ales and Lagers and Sonoma Cider.
Leaders of the National Black Brewers Association (NB2A) shared their experiences as Black brewery owners during the final Tap Talk of the California Craft Beer Summit last week in Sacramento.
Blue Lake, California-based Mad River Brewery has been acquired by the Paskenta Band of Nomlaki Indians, who own and operate the Rolling Hills Casino and Resort in Corning, California.
California craft breweries may soon have an easier time selling their beer at special events beyond their taproom walls, thanks to the California Craft Brewers Association’s (CCBA) sponsored bill in 2024. AB 2174 would “authorize a licensed beer manufacturer to apply for, and the department to issue, a beer caterer’s permit for the sale of beer manufactured by or for the licensee for consumption at specified locations and events, including, among others, conventions, sporting events, and trade exhibits.”
California Craft Brewers Association (CCBA) board member Alicia Barr (5050 Brewing Co.) and former director Peter Hoey (Urban Roots Brewery) join the Brewbound Podcast to discuss the state of craft beer in California, the country’s largest craft market, in advance of the CCBA’s annual California Craft Beer Summit next week in Sacramento.
Los Angeles-based Open Brewing has begun rolling its lager out in Southern California thanks in part to a business partnership with New Belgium Brewing. In addition to a minority investment, New Belgium contract brews Open’s beer, consults the brewery’s team and offers other “shared resources,” a New Belgium spokesperson told Brewbound.
After 35 years in business in downtown San Diego, Karl Strauss Brewing finally owns the keys to its original brewpub. The company closed on its brewery at Columbia and B streets on October 1, it announced yesterday.
Firestone Walker leadership shared their vision for 2024 with their wholesaler partners while also providing a business update of 2023 so far. The lion’s share of the meeting with its distributor partners was centered around the Paso Robles, California-headquartered craft brewery’s top brand, 805.
Seven California beer and beverage distributors have formed an alliance to provide a nearly statewide network to suppliers under the California Beverage Solution banner. The founding seven distributors include six independent Anheuser-Busch distributors, along with one of the largest craft-focused distributors in the country.
The 2023 edition of Russian River’s Pliny the Younger generated a record $6.3 million in economic impact, a more than $200,000 increase over last year’s record-breaking release, according to the Sonoma County Economic Development Board (EDB).