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.
Two new members have been elected to the American Cider Associations (ACA) board of directors, the hard cider industry trade group announced last week.
Leaders of the National Black Brewers Association (NB2A) shared their experiences as Black brewery owners during the final Tap Talk of the California Craft Beer Summit last week in Sacramento.
A majority of legal-drinking-age (LDA) consumers believe that states need to allow for direct-to-consumer (DTC) shipping of beer, according to a survey conducted by The Harris Poll on behalf of Sovos ShipCompliant, a bev-alc shipping and distribution compliance company.
California craft breweries may soon have an easier time selling their beer at special events beyond their taproom walls, thanks to the California Craft Brewers Association’s (CCBA) sponsored bill in 2024. AB 2174 would “authorize a licensed beer manufacturer to apply for, and the department to issue, a beer caterer’s permit for the sale of beer manufactured by or for the licensee for consumption at specified locations and events, including, among others, conventions, sporting events, and trade exhibits.”
A bipartisan bill is reigniting the fight to give a tax dedication to bars and restaurants with draft beer systems.
Domestic tax paid shipments increased +1.8% in January 2024 versus January 2023, marking the first year-over-year (YoY) increase since February 2023, according to the Beer Institute (BI), citing estimates from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB).
California Craft Brewers Association (CCBA) board member Alicia Barr (5050 Brewing Co.) and former director Peter Hoey (Urban Roots Brewery) join the Brewbound Podcast to discuss the state of craft beer in California, the country’s largest craft market, in advance of the CCBA’s annual California Craft Beer Summit next week in Sacramento.
This time last year, Brewers Association (BA) chief economist Bart Watson warned that the U.S. hop supply was becoming “unsustainable,” and predicted a drop in hop production in 2023.
Craft industry members are constantly asking about “price elasticity,” according to Brewers Association (BA) chief economist Bart Watson in his latest deep dive for the trade association.
Homebrew Con, the American Homebrewers Association’s (AHA) annual gathering of homebrewers, is on hiatus.
Brewers Association (BA) president and CEO Bob Pease acknowledged 2023 was “challenging for many small and independent brewers” in a recorded video accompanying the organization’s annual report.
Domestic tax paid shipments declined by more than 10.59 million barrels in 2023, according to the Beer Institute (BI), citing estimates from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB).
November domestic tax paid shipments from U.S. brewers were down -6.8% year-over-year (YoY), to an estimated 10.95 million barrels, according to the Beer Institute (BI) in its latest round of economic reports.
Chief economists Bart Watson (Brewers Association) and Lester Jones (National Beer Wholesalers Association) spent much of the past couple years staving off fears of a recession and preaching about how beer is “economically resilient.”
Craft beer has entered “no to negative growth territory,” Brewers Association (BA) chief economist Bart Watson said during a year-end webinar last week. “We were in double-digit growth as recently as 2014, 2015, and then we moved into kind of a more developed, slow, single-digit growth rate,” Watson said. “COVID hit, and we had the worst year in craft history in 2020 with a partial bounce back in 2021.
