Beneath the surface of craft beer’s 2025 production decline (-5.1%, to nearly 21.86 million barrels) were power moves, usurpings and stumbles among the industry’s top 50 breweries, which the Brewers Association (BA) released today.
Brewers Association president and CEO Bart Watson believes the Craft Brewers Conference works best when it’s “the big-tent event that everybody is coming to and connecting with.” On the latest edition of the Brewbound Podcast, Watson explained that he views the largest annual gathering of craft brewers (April 20-22 in Philadelphia) in four buckets.
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.
Cans may be maxing out their share of packaged craft products, Brewers Association (BA) staff economist Matt Gacioch wrote in a recent analysis of 2025 trends.
Check out news items initially reported in the Brewbound Insider Newsletter March 9-11, including headlines from Boston Beer, Black Frog, The Brewers Association and more.
The Beer Institute (BI) has tapped Chris MacArthur as its new director of federal affairs, the trade group announced Tuesday. MacArthur joins the BI from the office of Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA) – who owns a hop farm and represents a district that includes Yakima Valley – where he served as a senior adviser. In that role, he supported Newhouse on appropriations, national security and agricultural policy.
Beer wholesalers appear to be slightly more optimistic about the category through the first two months of 2026 compared to the start of 2025, according to the latest Beer Purchasers’ Index (BPI) from the National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA).
The CHEERS Act is back for another round in Congress. The bipartisan legislation would provide a tax incentive to bars, restaurants and entertainment venues to invest in energy-efficient draft systems.
Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling Friday to strike down President Donald Trump’s implementation of tariffs on imported goods, the president said he would invoke an additional 10% global tariff and bumped that figure up to 15% on Saturday.
The Brewers Association (BA) slashed nearly every line in its 2025 expenses, but the cuts were still not enough to offset declining revenue, according to the trade group’s annual report.
Domestic shipments declined 5.9% in 2025, a loss of more than 8.68 million barrels of beer, according to domestic tax paid shipment data shared by the Beer Institute (BI) Friday.
Check out news items initially reported in the Brewbound Insider Newsletter February 9-11, including headlines from the Brewers Association, Colorado and New Belgium.
The beverage-alcohol landscape has “radically” changed over the last decade, but small and independent producers – both in beer and hard cider – are primed to take advantage, Brewers Association (BA) president and CEO Bart Watson shared at CiderCon last week in Providence, Rhode Island.
Hard cider was one of three beer segments to record consistent growth in 2025, escaping the declines that plagued most of the category as beverage-alcohol tackled increased supply costs, consumer purchasing shifts and numerous macroeconomic headwinds.
The majority of adult non-alcoholic (ANA) beverage buyers are new consumers to the category, suggesting opportunities for suppliers looking to have a greater impact on the category, according to new data from market research firm NIQ.
Inflationary pressures, changing consumer shopping habits, immigration enforcement tactics, COVID-19, weather – all and more have been listed as causes for bev-alc’s less-than-ideal last few years. But one of the largest hurdles for the industry might be by its own design, according to National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA) chief economist and VP of analytics Lester Jones.
Beer ordering remained in contraction in January, but recorded a “significant bump” compared to December, according to National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA) in the first Beer Purchasers’ Index (BPI) of 2026.
