Three of the country’s top craft breweries unveiled their 2017 beer release schedules this week, sharing plans to introduce a host of new products and packages over the course of next year.
Pabst Brewing Company today announced an exclusive import agreement with Mexico’s oldest craft brewery, Cerveza Minerva. Specific terms of the transaction — which is set to begin next spring — were not disclosed, but Pabst said it would launch the brand in “a small number of test markets,” and begin building national distribution for Minerva’s beers over the course of 2017.
Texas’ Deep Ellum Brewing has sold a majority stake to Storied Craft Breweries, an upstart growth capital group founded by the creators of Effen Vodka and led by beer industry veterans Steve Berg and Adam Lambert. Under the deal, Storied Craft Breweries will acquire a 56 percent stake in Deep Ellum, one of the fastest growing craft breweries in Texas, at least in part by buying out more than 20 minority partners from earlier investment rounds. The brewery will also receive $8 million in growth capital.
Three months after departing Duvel USA, beer industry veteran Simon Thorpe has been tapped as the new CEO of Pabst Brewing Company. Thorpe — whose career also includes stints with InBev, Crayola, Kellogg’s, Tambrands and Unilever — will take over the CEO position from Eugene Kashper, who will continue to serve as a principal owner and the full-time chairman of the Pabst board.
Sierra Nevada yesterday named Joe Whitney as the company’s first chief commercial officer. Whitney, who began with the company in 2006, had been serving as the vice president of sales. The announcement comes after a six month-long effort to create a senior leadership team that, according to Whitney, will be tasked with doubling production over the next decade and transforming the company into the largest independently-owned craft brewery in the U.S.
Personnel changes are starting in the wake of Molson Coors’ purchase of MillerCoors. The company made one key addition, but has also begun cutting positions across the U.S. Yesterday, Molson Coors named Tracey Joubert as its new chief financial officer and, according to Pete Marino, the chief public affairs and communication officer at MillerCoors, six individuals based out of that division’s headquarters in Chicago will also be let go as a result of the acquisition.
The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) today announced it has accepted a $750,000 payment from Craft Beer Guild, LLC, a Massachusetts-based beer distributor, following its own investigation into allegations that the wholesaler violated state and federal laws prohibiting illegal inducements and unfair trade practices. According to a press statement issued by the TTB — which is responsible for enforcing the provisions of the Federal Alcohol Administration Act (FAA Act) — the Craft Beer Guild payment is the “largest offer in compromise” the agency has ever recovered from a single industry member for trade practice violations.
Small Town Brewery made a splash last year when the company’s “Not Your Father’s Root Beer” product notched more than $104 million in off-premise sales. But the apparent novelty of drinking an alcoholic soda seems to have slowed in 2016; sales of the flagship root beer offering are down an astonishing 75 percent over the last four weeks, according market research firm IRI Worldwide. The company today announced the launch of a line of “classically brewed beers” under the “Not Your Father’s Taproom” moniker.
The high end beer segment is poised to grow by 170 million cases over the next two years, according to Constellation Brands executive vice president Paul Hetterich. Speaking to more than 200 beer industry professionals attending the Beer Marketer’s Insights winter seminar, Hetterich, as well as leaders from Anheuser-Busch InBev and MillerCoors, discussed the consumer shift toward high end products and their companies’ strategies for competing in that segment.
In our latest distribution roundup, Upland Brewing expands to Boston; Forbidden Root inks agreements with Cavalier in Ohio and Florida and Ghostfish Brewing expands to Eastern Washington and Idaho.
Two groups representing the interests of Colorado craft brewery owners have merged just five months after 14 companies defected from the Colorado Brewers Guild, a statewide trade association that has advocated for breweries and brewpubs since 1995.
Constellation Brands has negotiated its “most comprehensive arena sponsorship” for popular Corona, Modelo and Ballast Point beer brands, yesterday announcing the signing of a lucrative “marketing alliance” with Barclays Center and the Brooklyn Nets.
When asked during last week’s earnings call whether or not the U.S. craft market was reaching an “inflection point,” Anheuser-Busch InBev CEO Carlos Brito responded by speculating that consumers might one day “get a bit tired of so much choice.” That sound bite — which was part of a two-minute long response about the growth of craft, A-B’s activity in the segment and thoughts on how the category is continuing to evolve — would eventually get picked up by beverage industry website just-drinks.com, igniting a hailstorm of hot takes in the process.
Anheuser-Busch InBev today announced it would purchase Karbach Brewing Company, the fastest-growing craft brewery in Texas and the ninth to join A-B’s ever-expanding High End division. Specific financial terms of the transaction were not disc
