Boston Beer Company, the country’s second-largest craft brewery according to trade group the Brewers Association, today announced that CEO Martin Roper would retire in 2018. Roper, who has led the company since 2001, said in a press release that he informed the company’s board of directors of his plans to step down “a year in advance” to give the Boston Beer ample time to name a successor and to “assure a very smooth transition.”
Revered craft brewery Lawson’s Finest Liquids this week announced plans to expand its presence in the Northeast, with the addition of new markets in Massachusetts, Connecticut and its home state of Vermont. The company has signed with Atlantic Beverage Distributors (formerly Atlantic Importing) for new distribution throughout Massachusetts.
Is the beer business headed for a “Trump moment?” That’s the question Craft Brew Alliance CEO Andy Thomas posed this week to a room of beer industry professionals attending the annual Beer Business Daily Summit in San Diego.
The Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act (CBMTRA) is back in front of Congress. The latest two bills (H.R.747 and S.236) were simultaneously re-introduced into both the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate on Monday morning. If the Act passes, it would cut taxes on all brewers, importers, cider producers, distillers, and winemakers. The comprehensive tax reform effort is once again backed by the Beer Institute and the Brewers Association, and contains the same craft-friendly language as previous versions put forth during the 114th Congress.
The Trump administration has appointed Jake Leinenkugel to serve as a senior White House advisor to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Wisconsin Distributors to Purchase River City Distributing. And more Press Clips.
Even before members of an alcohol review task force meet for the first time to begin examining decades-old Massachusetts liquor laws, Treasury Department officials are already tracking at least 55 proposed pieces of legislation that could affect how in-state brewers, distributors and retailers operate.
Massachusetts beer wholesalers are going on the offensive. After several years of fighting small craft brewers’ efforts to change state franchise laws, the Beer Distributors of Massachusetts today filed a bill that would enable beer companies making less than 30,000 barrels annually to sever relationships with wholesalers for no cause.
A pair of transactions in the Pacific Northwest will see the coming together of three wholesalers and the creation of a new jointly owned entity by two prominent beer distribution companies. Click Wholesale Distributing — a craft beer, spirits and wine wholesaler with operations in Renton, Wash., Spokane, Wash., and Hayden, Idaho — today announced its pending sale to Craig Stein Beverage.
In an effort to halt a sales slide for one of its most popular flagship brands, Boston Beer Company today unveiled a reformulated recipe for Samuel Adams Rebel IPA that now features the popular Mosaic hop variety as well as a new grain bill void of caramel malt. It’s the first time in Boston Beer’s 32-year history that the company has “significantly changed” the recipe of a flagship beer, according to founder Jim Koch, and it comes just three years after the product was first introduced nationally.
In this week’s edition of press clips: A Massachusetts task force has been assembled and is set to review the state’s alcohol laws; Great Divide production dips 16 percent in 2016; Washington’s Big Al Brewing closes its doors and a boutique beer distributor launches in Colorado.
For the third straight year, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau issued more than 1,000 new brewery permits, bringing the total number of permitted U.S. breweries to a record high of 7,190 in 2016. The government agency issued 1,110 new permits in 2016, down slightly from the 1,142 new permits issued in 2015.
In this week’s edition of Last Call: Finch Beer strikes a deal for a Chicago brewery; BrewDog hires a former Wicked Weed sour brewer and Starbucks ends its “evenings” program.
Pressed by Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), both of whom serve on the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Sen. Jeff Sessions said Tuesday that he would have “no hesitation to enforce antitrust law” as Attorney General.
Chicago’s Forbidden Root Brewery has partnered with historic Italian amaro producer Fernet-Branca to create a new spirit-inspired imperial black ale, appropriately named Fernetic. The collaboratively brewed beer is set to debut on January 19 and only 50 cases of the limited-release offering will be available for purchase.
