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.
Seven of the 10 largest Brewers Association-defined craft breweries recorded production volume declines in 2025, according to data shared by the trade group in the May/June Issue of The New Brewer magazine.
Craft brewers’ production volume fell a collective 5.1% in 2025, according to the Brewers Association’s (BA) annual Industry Production Report, published today.
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.
Nancy Palmer has left her post as the executive director of the Georgia Craft Brewers Guild to become the director of government affairs at the Georgia Chamber of Commerce. Palmer, the first woman to receive the Brewers Association’s F.X. Matt Defense of the Industry Award, started at the Georgia Chamber of Commerce in November. She had served as executive director of the guild since being promoted to the post in July 2014.
Craft brewers are on pace for another year of low single-digit growth, the Brewers Association announced today in its annual “The Year in Beer” review. The not-for-profit trade organization representing small and independent U.S. craft breweries projects 2019 volume growth of 4%, down slightly from the 2018 number.
Richard Mahoney, the chairman of the board of The Wine Group, is the lead investor in Chicagoland craft brewery Kings & Convicts’ acquisition of Ballast Point Brewing Company from Constellation Brands, according to the ChicagoTribune. Brooklyn Brewery restructures sales force.
A survey commissioned by the Beer Institute (BI), a national trade group advocating for the U.S. brewing industry, found that 68% of respondents were in favor of extending the federal excise tax relief that was put in place in 2017, but slated to expire at the end of the year. Quadrant Strategies conducted the survey of 1,000 legal drinking age adults for the BI earlier this month.
BrewDog launches a third funding round in the U.S. HUB offers mug club memberships to drinkers of closed Portland breweries. Santa Rosa’s Shady Oak Barrel House faces backlash for beer name.
A number of members of Anheuser-Busch InBev’s corporate affairs team have left the company since early 2019. Cider strategist Caitlin Braam parts ways with Angry Orchard. Beverage operations manager Jonny Stringer departs CraftWorks.
In this week’s edition of Last Call: Drake and Canopy Growth partner to launch More Life Growth Company; Walmart offers curbside pickup of alcohol in 29 states; JetBlue to offer Truly Hard Seltzer; and more news bites.
Founders Brewing Company’s Detroit taproom will remain closed through the end of 2019. In the wake of a now-settled racial discrimination lawsuit filed by a former employee against the Grand Rapids, Michigan-headquartered craft brewery, the company said it will reopen the taproom in “early 2020” and donate all profits to local charities and organizations “through at least 2022.”
A bill to extend federal excise tax (FET) relief has garnered a record number of co-sponsors following a day of action coordinated by the Beer Institute (BI), Brewers Association (BA) and other alcoholic beverage trade groups.
A federal magistrate judge last Thursday filed a report and recommendation order largely siding with Stone Brewing’s claims that MillerCoors did not provide all available marketing materials for its Keystone brand during the lawsuit’s discovery phase.
Founders Brewing Company and former employee Tracy Evans announced Thursday they have agreed to settle the racial discrimination lawsuit against the Grand Rapids, Michigan-based craft brewery. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed, and the lawsuit has been dismissed.
Founders Brewing Company temporarily shuttered its Detroit taproom on Friday amid growing backlash following the leak of a deposition in an ongoing racial discrimination lawsuit against the company. Meanwhile, diversity and inclusion director Graci Harkema, who the company hired in January 2019, announced her resignation.
Anheuser-Busch filed two motions Tuesday night in its ongoing lawsuit with MillerCoors in an effort to unseal its heavily redacted counterclaim accusing its top competitor of stealing its trade secrets and receive a summary judgement.
The legal battle between the two largest beer makers in the U.S. escalated today, as Anheuser-Busch today accused MillerCoors of breaking state and federal laws by stealing trade secrets regarding beer recipes for its two top-selling brands, Bud Light and Michelob Ultra. In the heavily redacted 66-page amended complaint and counterclaim filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, A-B alleges that two of its former employees who now work for MillerCoors and its parent company Molson Coors either shared confidential trade secrets with their current employers or sought information from current employees about the making of A-B products.
