With a leadership team all well under two years on the job, it would be logical to view 2025 as a rebuilding year for Heineken-owned Lagunitas Brewing. But the Petaluma, California-headquartered brewery took distributor and retailer feedback to heart in the past year-plus, which drove Lagunitas to develop a 2025 plan that’s consistent, focused and hinges on collaboration with its partners.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a myriad of bills Friday before the end of the 2021-2022 legislative sessions, including an update to two laws that give more flexibility to craft brewers in the state by expanding the number of satellite taprooms and allowing distribution of their own products to retail locations nearby.
The California Craft Brewers Association’s Lori Ajax and Chris Walker discuss a pair of bills awaiting the governor’s signature that would benefit the state’s craft brewers. Those bills — expanding the number of satellite locations and bonafide eating places, and adding on-sale privileges — were among the CCBA’s priorities this year. Ajax and Walker also dish on middle tier consolidation, direct-to-consumer sales, supply chain issues and much more.
Scout Distribution announced today that it will acquire Classic Beverage beverage-alcohol portfolio in the greater Los Angeles territory, covering LA, Santa Barbara, Ventura, San Luis Obispo, Orange, Riverside, Kern and San Bernardino counties. The transaction is expected to close in November.
Sierra Nevada announced last week the closure of its Berkeley, California-based Torpedo Room satellite taproom after nearly a decade in business.
Anheuser-Busch InBev has struck a deal to sell its Oakland, California-based wholly owned distributor to two independent wholesalers, Markstein Sales Company and Matagrano, Inc.
Figueroa Mountain Brewing Co. has taken over operations of three Los Angeles brewpub properties from Artisanal Brewers Collective (ABC), and will convert each into specialty Figueroa Mountain taprooms, the Buellton, California-based brewery announced June 17.
The 2022 release of Russian River’s Pliny the Younger generated $6.1 million in economic impact, a record for the brewery and a $1 million (+20%) increase compared to 2020, the last year that the triple IPA was released.
Court records filed in the wake of last Friday’s auction for San Diego craft brewery Modern Times give a closer look at bidding play-by-play, and the tension between qualified bidders MTD Asset Acquisition and BX MT BAMF LLC. Earlier this week, MTD (the group referred to during the auction as North Carolina brewery Tru Colors), whose $20.1 million bid was not accepted as the winning bid, filed an objection to the sale of Modern Times to BX MT (an affiliate of Brewery X in Anaheim), and submitted a new bid of $21 million. MTD claims priority was given to Brewery X’s bid due to its inclusion of a shorter closing period, despite what it believes was a previous guarantee that such conditions would not be weighted in choosing a winning bid. Those efforts caused a federal judge to table a hearing Monday set to confirm the sale of the brewery.
Anderson Valley Brewing Company (AVBC), has committed to holding price – at least through the summer – despite inflationary headwinds, supply chain strain and continued effects of COVID-19 felt throughout the beer industry, the Boonville, California-based craft brewery announced Wednesday.
Russian River co-founder Natalie Cilurzo urged craft brewers to delve into the motivation and mission behind their businesses in her keynote address to the Brewers Association’s (BA) Craft Brewers Conference (CBC) in Minneapolis on Wednesday.
After a state court largely rejected its claims earlier this year, Seismic Brewing Company has now filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against DBI Beverage, Reyes Holdings and Reyes subsidiary Harbor Distributing, alleging the beer distributor attempted to maintain a monopoly of California’s beer distribution market.
The California beer industry is still in a period of recovery, as total beer volume in the state declined in 2021 for the fourth consecutive year (-1.6%), Chris Shepard, senior editor of Craft Brew News at Beer Marketers’ Insights (BMI), said in his keynote speech last week, kicking off the California Craft Brewers Association’s (CCBA’s) members conference in San Diego.
The Reyes Beer Division is adding to its California map with the planned acquisition of Columbia Distributing’s business in Northern California, the companies announced this evening.
The California Craft Brewers Association (CCBA) is “getting very aggressive” on legislative initiatives in 2022, Chris Walker, the trade group’s lobbyist, said Monday at its members conference in San Diego.
