Stay informed on the latest beer industry, legislative, government affairs and legal news, including updates on the Brewers Association and NBWA. Understand the evolving beverage alcohol regulatory and legal environment that can directly impact your distribution, retail efforts, intellectual property, packaging and ingredients.
Submit Legislative News
If you have insights into recent regulatory or legislative news related to the beer or beverage-alcohol industry, please submit your news to your team.
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.
Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits (SGWS) has consistently charged independent retailers as much as 12% to 67% more than national and regional chains for the same products, according to newly unsealed redactions in the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) price discrimination case against the distributor.
A class action lawsuit has once again been filed against Molson Coors alleging the company’s marketing campaign for Vizzy Hard Seltzer promoting “antioxidant Vitamin C from Acerola Superfruit” was misleading to consumers,.
Beer industry trade groups are calling on the leaders of the U.S. Senate appropriations committee to allocate additional funds to the Department of the Treasury’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau’s (TTB) 2022 fiscal year budget. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued warnings this week about the potential risks of Delta-8 — a form of the psychoactive cannabinoid tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).
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.
The Brewers Association (BA) named the winners of its annual industry awards during its annual Craft Brewers Conference, which took place in person for the first time since 2019 last weekend in Denver. “From innovations in brewing to fighting for legislation to protect craft brewers, this year’s award recipients have made countless contributions to the craft beer community,” BA president and CEO Bob Pease said in a press release.
As part of President Joe Biden’s “COVID-19 action plan” announced last week, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is developing an “Emergency Temporary Standard” that will require employers of 100 or more employees to be fully vaccinated or require unvaccinated workers to undergo weekly testing before going to work.
A year after recording the first decline in the modern craft beer era, Brewers Association chief economist Bart Watson estimated that craft volume could grow between 7 and 8% in 2021.
Brewers Association (BA) president and CEO Bob Pease today announced the creation of the Brewing Respect and Unity (BRU) Coalition to combat sexual harassment and discrimination in the beer industry. “This scourge of discrimination has festered and held us back as a community, as individual businesses, and as human beings,” he continued. “It is time for an awakening.”
The legal battle between Jack’s Abby Craft Lagers and Atlantic Beverage Distributors has crossed state lines into Rhode Island. Atlantic Importing and Distributing of Rhode Island, Inc., the Ocean State sister company of the Holliston, Massachusetts-based distributor, filed a lawsuit against Jack’s Abby in Rhode Island’s Providence/Bristol County Superior Court on July 23 to prevent the brewery from terminating Atlantic as its Rhode Island wholesaler. The Framingham, Massachusetts-based craft brewery had successfully ended its relationship with Atlantic’s Massachusetts operation in January.
Anheuser-Busch InBev has filed a pair of lawsuits this week, including one accusing the company’s Texas-based energy supplier of price gouging during Winter Storm Uri in February. Symmetry Energy Solutions, which supplies natural gas to A-B’s brewery and glass manufacturing plant in Houston, billed the world’s largest beer manufacturer $4.85 million for its energy use in February 2021, due to Texas’ spot energy market.
The National Beer Wholesalers Association will require attendees of its annual convention and trade show to provide proof of vaccination against COVID-19 or a negative test before entering the event, scheduled to take place October 3-6 in Las Vegas.
A plan that would allow Canadian cannabis company Tilray to issue additional shares needs more votes, CEO Irwin D. Simon wrote to shareholders yesterday in a letter.
A false marketing suit against Anheuser-Busch InBev (A-B) and its Miami-based Veza Sur brand was dismissed by a U.S. district court judge in Miami last week, which included a district court judge referring to the definition of a craft brewery as “a subjective term,” according to Law360.
New Glarus Brewing co-founder and CEO Deborah Carey called a lawsuit filed last week against her and her Wisconsin craft brewery by three minority investors “slanderous,” and she said she plans to file a counter complaint. The three original investors in New Glarus claim in their lawsuit, filed in Wisconsin’s Dane County Circuit Court, that Carey breached her fiduciary duties and the company has oppressed minority shareholders.
Three out of five adults (60%) in the U.S. drink alcoholic beverages, according to a July poll from the analytics and advisory company Gallup, Inc.
