Explore the world of craft beer, from performance reports and innovation tactics to the state of the industry and breaking news.
Anyone looking for an answer to when craft’s current era of compounding hurdles and declines will come to an end received a reality check Wednesday during Brewers Association (BA) president and CEO Bart Watson’s state of the industry address, held at the start of Day 2 of the Craft Brewers Conference (CBC) in Indianapolis.
Around 10,000 industry members are expected to make the trip to Indianapolis for the 2025 Craft Brewers Conference and BrewExpo America (April 28 to May 1). The gathering takes place against a backdrop of growing headwinds for craft breweries and an overhaul of CBC’s host organization, the Brewers Association.
Craft’s rolling four-week losses improved to start 2025, according to the most recent report from market research firm Circana. The segment’s off-premise dollar sales declined -3.1% and volume, measured in case sales, declined -4.6% in the four-week period ending January 26 (L4W) at multi-outlet grocery, mass retail and convenience stores (MULO+C). That marked an improvement over the prior four-week period (through December 29, 2024), when craft dollars declined -5.1% and volume declined -6.5%.
For its 2025 brand plan, New Trail Brewing is seeing things more clearly than the six-year-old craft brewery ever has before, leadership told partners during the brewery’s inaugural distributor summit earlier this month.
Sierra Nevada CEO Pryce Greenow began his remarks to wholesalers last week acknowledging that craft beer is not short on challenges, including a “cash-constrained consumer,” category price increases, trends in moderation and bev-alc abstinence “becoming more meaningful,” and “a whole host of substitute products” entering the market.
After 35 years, Massachusetts-based brewpub Cambridge Brewing Co. (CBC) has announced it will shut its doors at the end of 2024.
The nice things about hosting a massive political convention in your state capital are that you get beers named after you … and that the mayor does most of the work anyway.
New Orleans-based Cajun Fire Brewing is the new owner of a 20-barrel brewhouse.
While many annual business plans over the next couple months will likely include fourth-category innovations, Sierra Nevada is focused on continuing to innovate with “beer-flavored beer.”
If craft beer had a Bizarro World, a place where everything was the opposite of its current state, it would be Williamsport, Pennsylvania, home of New Trail Brewing.
Tilray Brands announced “a definitive agreement” with Molson Coors Beverage Company to acquire four craft beer brands in its Tenth & Blake division.
Ray Ricky Rivera has a classic craft story: He started as a homebrewer and decided to turn his passion into a business, launching Norwalk Brew House and its flagship beer Bidi Bidi Blonde Blonde Mexican-American ale in early 2022.
Michigan’s Griffin Claw Brewing filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week, though not for the reasons frequently cited by other breweries recently.
Tilray Brands’ bev-alc net revenue increased +137%, to $76.7 million in Q4 fiscal year 2024 (FY24), as the global cannabis firm and “lifestyle brand” closed out its first year with the eight beverage brands it acquired from Anheuser-Busch InBev (A-B).
Total craft trends improved slightly in the last four weeks (ending July 14), with dollar sales declining -4.8% year-over-year (YoY) and volume -6.4% in Circana-tracked off-premise channels (total U.S. multi-outlet plus convenience), according to the market research firm’s latest monthly report.
Cincinnati, Ohio-based Urban Artifact Brewing has filed a lawsuit against Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (PLCB) chairman Tim Holden and Pennsylvania State Police commissioner Col. Christopher Paris alleging the state “enforce[s] cost-prohibitive trade barriers on out-of-state breweries” and those barriers “prevent out-of-state breweries from competing freely with in-state breweries in violation of the dormant Commerce Clause.”
In the latest edition of A Round With – Brewbound’s Insider-exclusive Q&A series with industry leaders – we caught up with Matt Smith, founder of Beverly, Massachusetts-based Wandering Soul Beer Co.
