Daily Briefing Newsletter

In this issue, Sierra Nevada lays out its 2025 plans, A-B makes a deal to sell distro branches in MA and OH, Oregon’s hop crop declines double digits, NIQ offers a halftime bev-alc report on the Brewbound Podcast and Zoe shares her Bahamian beer haul.

Ya know, some days … being on TV is harder than it looks, folks (#funfact – I’ve done a few TV appearances of my own, and no, Zoe, none were via footage on the local news). The team at KREM-TV in Spokane was reporting on a beer-naming contest that EASTERN WASHINGTON U was holding with the NO-LI Brewery to give a new name to the Eagle Ale (working title) that they were making together

In Wednesday’s Brewbound Insider newsletter, gains made by domestic tax paid beer shipments in May were all but “wiped out” in June, according to Beer Institute chief economist Andrew Heritage. Insiders are also reading about attendance at the 2024 Craft Brewers Conference, the impending closure of J. Wakefield’s taproom and Lawson’s market expansion.

Who says endorsements are just for athletes? Kudos to the MOLSON corporation for finding a creative way to work beer into Olympics sponsorship! 🍻 And more importantly, a congratulations to the parents of 9 Canadian Olympians who are now getting a 💰, TV time and most importantly – free beer (😱) as part of their new endorsement contracts during the Paris games.

Congratulations beer, you did it! Beer was chosen as the alcoholic beverage of choice for the summer (66%) over wine (54%), liquor (50%) and cocktails (43%) in a brand new survey of 2,087 LDAs. What’s that? Who paid for the survey? Well, I mean is that really important? OK fine, it was the BEER INSTITUTE (who enlisted MORNING CONSULT to conduct it on its behalf), but I’m sure they totally would have released the results even if wine had come out on top, ahem.

Three years post-pandemic, the beer industry’s performance is still “erratic,” National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA) chief economist and VP of analytics Lester Jones said during a webinar on Tuesday.

Gonna open this weekend’s newsletter with an invitation to the Brewers Association to join me for a pint in NYC (you’re buying – uhh, Justin insists), as the BA just published a report that asserts that the price of a pint on-premise has tracked below the rate of inflation for the past 3 years. It also cites an average pint price of $6.85 as of the end of 2023. So, come to NYC and let’s have a couple of craft pints to toast to that – just make sure you bring more than $20.

Some say there’s no such thing as bad publicity … but I feel rather confident in saying this wasn’t a July 4 holiday product placement spend from Coors.

The number of craft beer drinkers who are drinking less craft beer than they were a year ago has surpassed the number of those who are drinking more for the first time since the Brewers Association (BA) started asking this question in its annual poll in 2015.

While it’s nice to be the official beer of a sports league … it’s apparently another thing to supply beer for player celebrations. I mean, we’re not made of money, folks. So alas, the only visibility that MICH ULTRA had in the CELTICS locker room celebration after winning the NBA Finals was … some signage in the background, as players celebrated with MILLER LITE, CORONA, HIGH NOON and even Boston’s own JACK’S ABBY.

Tuesday’s edition of the Brewbound Newsletter features the Brewers Association’s review of onsite brewery sales data in Q1; Reyes-owned DET’s acquisition of 1.6M cases in TN; Brooklyn Brewery naming a new VP of sales; an analysis of Constellation Brands’ consumer demographics; Bart Watson’s breakdown of ‘wild’ hop acreage cuts; and Jon Stewart’s visit to an Asbury Park brewery.

Beer, it’s what’s for Father’s Day. Or at least it is compared to spirits and wine, as 76% of folks planning to buy bev-alc for the big day this weekend will buy beer, according to market research firm Numerator. Wine and spirits weren’t even close at 36% each, and both got a real stern look from Dad when they were mentioned at the dinner table last night 😬.

A Round With J.C. Hill of Alvarado Street; Athletic Purchases Former Ballast Point Facility; Circana: A-B Declines Decelerate Thru Late May; Beer Tops List of Bev-Alc Father’s Day Buys; Hulk Hogan Launches Real American Lager; Podcast: Burial Beer’s Doug Reiser.

So I think we’ve been looking in the wrong direction all of this time for #innovation – Utah’s Dylan McDonnell has the right idea. He brewed a beer using a recipe from a 3,000 year old Egyptian papyrus, which oddly enough also had “Next year will be the Year of the Craft Lager” written on it, and yeast cultured from a jar that dates back to the 9th century B.C.