Trade Groups

In this week’s edition of Last Call: Pabst and MillerCoors are headed to trial in November; Amazon adds beer delivery in Texas; the Florida Brewers Guild claims big beer is pushing small brands out of Publix; and more news.

A bipartisan group of Congressional members have called on the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate potential irregularities in the aluminum market, which they say are causing the price of the metal used in beverage cans to surge. In the letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, U.S. Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) and 31 additional congressional members pointed to “sharp increases” in the Midwest Premium — which represents the full logistics costs of shipping and storing metal in the U.S. — as the potential cause of aluminum pricing irregularities.

Beer companies haven’t effectively marketed to women, and they’re leaving a lot of opportunity for increased sales on the table, according to Bridget Brennan, CEO of Chicago-based consulting group the Female Factor. “We can’t underestimate that there has been, from a beer industry standpoint, a 150-year head start in marketing the product to guys as a guy’s product,” she told industry stakeholders who attended the Beer Institute’s annual meeting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, this week.

North American sales of cannabis are expected to grow to $24 billion by 2021, Jessica Lukas, vice president of consumer insights at BDS Analytics, shared during the final day of the Beer Institute’s annual meeting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. That figure, she added, doesn’t account for a potential end to the federal ban on marijuana in the United States.

The Beer Institute (BI) unveiled a pair of surveys during the first day of the trade group’s annual meeting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, indicating public support for many industry issues as well as apathy from young drinkers. In his opening remarks, BI president and CEO Jim McGreevy shared the results of a poll on several hot button industry issues, including excise tax reform, President Donald Trump’s tariffs on aluminum and FDA menu labeling. Following McGreevy’s presentation, BI chief economist Michael Uhrich offered the results of a survey on the attitudes of 21- to 24-year-old consumers toward beer, wine and liquor.

As the clock turned to midnight, the exemption on aluminum and steel tariffs expired on Canada, the European Union and Mexico. The levies imposed by President Donald Trump — 25 percent on foreign steel and 10 percent on aluminum — will now be collected from the nation’s trade allies, who have subsequently threatened to impose their own tariffs on U.S. exports. Brewbound stopped by the Beer Institute’s Washington, D.C., offices to discuss the news with CEO Jim McGreevy. Watch the video above.

In this week’s edition of Last Call: A New York distributor was fined $4.3 million in a bottle return scam; TTB says no to controlled substances in beer; Owens-Illinois announces plans to close its Atlanta facility;

In the continued fallout of President Donald Trump’s tariffs on foreign aluminum and steel, the Beer Institute (BI) is now calling on the Department of Commerce, the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to investigate anticompetitive activity in the aluminum market.

The Beer Institute (BI) is forecasting U.S. beer shipments to decline between one and three percent in 2018, chief economist Michael Uhrich shared during the national trade association’s “State of the Industry” webinar today.

Leaders from the beer industry’s three largest trade associations are vowing once again to unite brewers and distributors in an effort to return the category to growth. Speaking to a group of nearly 700 U.S. beer distributors attending the annual National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA) legislative conference on Monday in Washington, D.C., Beer Institute CEO Jim McGreevy called on industry members to work together to curb volume losses.

Draft beer now accounts for nearly two-thirds of all on-premise beer volume, according to the Beer Institute’s (BI) annual State-Level Packaging Report, released today. Last year, 61.7 percent of all beer sold on-premise was poured on draft — a 1.8 point share gain — which the BI said is the highest on-premise draft share ever recorded.

In a move that would have wide-ranging effects on the beer industry, President Donald Trump yesterday announced plans to implement a 10 percent tariff on imported aluminum. The move comes weeks after the Commerce Department recommended tariffs on aluminum and steel as a national security precaution, citing the nation’s inability to build military weapons without foreign steel and aluminum.

Citing a need for better representation on legislative matters, nine New Jersey craft brewers today announced the formation of a new state trade group — the Brewers Guild of New Jersey. Many, if not all, of those breweries will not be renewing their memberships with New Jersey’s existing guild, the New Jersey Brewers Association, Brewbound… Read more »

2017 was historically bad for U.S. brewers, who shipped 3.8 million fewer barrels of beer than the previous year, according to the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau’s (TTB) unofficial estimate of domestic tax paid shipments. According to industry trade association the Beer Institute (BI) — which represents the interests of all brewers and importers and publishes the TTB’s monthly estimates — U.S. beer companies shipped about 170 million barrels of beer in 2017, compared to nearly 174 million barrels in 2016.