The Canarchy Craft Brewery Collective – whose brands include Oskar Blues, Cigar City, Deep Ellum, Perrin Brewing, Three Weavers, and Utah Brewers Cooperative (Wasatch and Squatters) – continued its growth through the midway point of 2019. Speaking to Brewbound, Canarchy president Matt Fraser said portfolio-wide depletions were up 13 percent through the first six months of the year.
During episode 44 of the Brewbound Podcast, I introduced and facilitated a conversation with my co-host, Justin Kendall, that was inappropriate misguided and had no place on the show. First and foremost, I owe everyone involved a sincere apology.
John Bryant, the founder of Spokane, Washington’s No-Li Brewhouse, doesn’t mince words when describing the state of the beer industry in 2019. “It’s chaos,” he told Brewbound during a recent interview. The beer industry veteran — whose three-decades-long career includes stints at Deschutes Brewery, Odell Brewing and Oskar Blues — is, of course, referring to the 7,500-plus craft breweries fighting for distributor, retailer and consumer mindshare.
The Riverside Company, a private equity firm with offices in New York City and Cleveland, has exited its investment in Salt Lake City’s Uinta Brewing Company. Reached by Brewbound, a spokesperson for the firm, which acquired a partial stake in 2014, declined to comment on its decision to back away from the investment.
Canopy Growth Corporation (TSE: WEED) today announced that co-CEO Bruce Linton has stepped down as chief executive and board member. However, Linton, who co-founded the company in 2013, called into CNBC to clarify that he was fired from the world’s largest cannabis company.
The Saint Louis Brewery today named Fran Caradonna, who joined the company earlier this year, as its next chief executive officer. A 25-year industry veteran who co-founded the O’Fallon Brewery, Caradonna took over as chief financial officer and chief administration officer of the Schlafly Beer maker at the end of March.
In an effort to bolster sales of its beer at on- and off-premise retail accounts, Westminster, Massachusetts-based Wachusett Brewing Company is leaning into a taproom expansion strategy within its home state. The company today announced it would take over the former John Harvard’s Ale House located in the heart of Cambridge’s Harvard Square.
Anheuser-Busch InBev is pushing deeper into non-beer offerings, today announcing that its innovation and growth unit, ZX Ventures, has acquired the remaining stake in Swish Beverages that it did not already own.
The Brewers Association wants to make July 3rd “National Independent Beer Run Day.” The national trade group supporting small and independent U.S. breweries wants to remind drinkers to buy beer from a small brewery ahead of the Fourth of July holiday and it has launched a digital campaign that includes video ads, audio spots and “summer-themed sponsored playlists” on Pandora Radio to do so.
A bevy of new advertisements for one of Boston Beer Company’s core Samuel Adams beers, Sam ’76, hit the brewery’s YouTube channel today. The commercials, which carry the tagline “I can taste my beer,” feature drinkers “finally” discovering taste in their beverage.
Anheuser-Busch is reaching back into the archives for its latest Bud Light ad campaign. The world’s largest beer company yesterday unveiled updated versions of the iconic “Real Men of Genius” radio ads that debuted in 1998 and ran through the mid-2000s.
Lighthouse Strategies — the company behind Cannabiniers and the Two Roots line of CBD- and THC-infused non-alcoholic craft beers – is closing in on its next brewery acquisition. Speaking to Brewbound, CEO and chairman Michael Hayford said the company could finalize the purchase of a craft beer company in the Great Lakes region of the U.S. before the end of June.
Mass Bay Brewing Company’s release of Arctic Summer hard seltzer also coincides with a search for the company’s first chief marketing officer, something co-founder and CEO Dan Kenary considers to be “the most important external hire” the 33-year-old company has ever made. Speaking to Brewbound, Kenary said interviews for a CMO are underway, and he hopes to hire someone who can “roll up their sleeves” and not “ask someone else” to do their work by the end of the summer.
BrewDog USA is outpacing the overall craft segment (which is up about 2 percent), growing depletions (sales-to-retailers) 114 percent through May compared to last year. Last month alone, the company sold 51,000 cases, according to chief revenue officer Adam Lambert.
