Legislative, Government Affairs & Legal Updates

In this week’s edition of Last Call: The Nevada Attorney General investigates MillerCoors; Stone seeks an injunction in its Keystone case; Almanac’s co-founder departs the company; and more news from the week.

The owners of two Texas craft beer companies are encouraging the state’s wholesalers to work with them on modernizing alcoholic beverage laws that bar manufacturing breweries from selling beer to go. During a Brew Talks panel discussion, held last week in conjunction with the National Beer Wholesalers Association Next Generation conference in Austin, Texas, Hops & Grain founder Josh Hare, who also chairs the Texas Craft Brewers Guild, argued that the “marriage” between suppliers and wholesalers should work more like a partnership and less like “a parent-child relationship.”

A bill signed into law last weekend by Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner will allow the state’s breweries to purchase and sell guest beer and cider in their taprooms. Under House Bill 4897, the state will allow licensed Class 1 breweries (producing up to 30,000 barrels annually) and Class 2 breweries (making up to 120,000 barrels a year) to purchase beer and cider from either a wholesaler or a self-distributing brewery.

In this week’s edition of Last Call: Boston Beer founder Jim Koch dines with President Trump; Buffalo Wild Wings considers sports betting; Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s ties to a Montana brewery project come under scrutiny; a federal appeals court rejects a challenge to the MegaBrew merger; and more news.

In this week’s edition Last Call: Heineken takes a minority stake in a Chinese beer giant; ZX Ventures makes an e-commerce play in Australia; Toppling Goliath sues its former brewer; and more news from the week.

MillerCoors continues to battle a pair of high-profile lawsuits — including a trademark infringement case brought by Stone Brewing and another case from a Las Vegas beer wholesaler. Earlier this week, MillerCoors, the U.S. beer division of Molson Coors, responded to Stone Brewing’s motion for a preliminary injunction to prevent the sale of Keystone products in which the word “Stone” had been isolated.

A month after a bipartisan group of Congressional members called on the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate potential irregularities in the aluminum market, Platts, the group responsible for helping set the price of the metal purchased by thousands of U.S. beer companies, has vowed to offer greater transparency into current price assessments. Platts, which is owned by Standard & Poor’s and bills itself as “the leading independent provider of information and benchmark prices for the commodities and energy markets,” last week announced that it would begin publishing alternative pricing for non-tariffed aluminum and domestically available scrap, starting August 1.

California lawmakers are considering two new pieces of legislation — one that would expand retail sales privileges for the state’s brewpubs and another bill, backed by Anheuser-Busch InBev, that would allow beer manufacturers to give away glassware to bars and restaurants.

Want to know what a craft beer drinker looks like in America? According to Nielsen, a weekly craft drinker is predominantly male, ages 21-34, and makes between $75,000 and $99,000 annually. Although that’s the profile of a frequent craft drinker, opportunities exist to reach a more diverse group of consumers, according to the research firm, which today shared the results of its fourth annual Craft Beer Insights Panel (CIP) survey, conducted by Harris Poll and commissioned by the Brewers Association (BA).

In this week’s Last Call: A look at California beer production; Sen. Schumer backs permanent excise tax cuts; TTB accepts $20,000 offer in compromise from Cigar City; and more beer industry news.

In this week’s edition of Last Call: Tivoli sues Montucky Cold Snacks over brand rights; President Trump’s trade war with China escalates; Jake Leinenkugel seeks medical marijuana study for military vets; New Belgium joins the American Hemp Campaign; H-E-B begins beer and wine delivery; and more news.

The Brewers Association (BA) announced a sponsorship deal earlier this week to feature a Buffalo Wild Wings branded pop-up sports bar on the floor of the Great American Beer Festival (GABF), its marquee tasting and judging event held annually in Denver. The partnership with the chicken wing chain, which was acquired last November by Arby’s for $2.9 billion, is the second major sponsorship deal for the late September festival. In early June, the BA announced that Pernod Ricard-owned Jameson would build a barrel-aged beer garden on the festival floor.

In the latest edition of Press Clips: Beer rationing begins in Europe; trademark infringement fights continue; Beavertown feels the fallout from selling a minority stake to Heineken; and more.

After years of fighting for the right to sell to-go beer, manufacturing breweries in Texas now have allies on both sides of aisle. Texas Democrats and Republicans both included language in their respective party platforms supporting the legalization of off-premise sales privileges for the state’s production breweries as well as changes to the three-tier system of alcohol distribution.