The Brewers Association will change the way it processes Great American Beer Festival applications in 2017 after the group made a critical error that forced festival organizers to revoke one popular Ohio brewery’s “Mid-Size Brewing Company of the Year” award and give it to another brewery. Late Saturday evening — hours after the BA handed out 286 medals to 254 different breweries — festival organizers discovered their mistake and informed Fat Head’s Brewery that it had been stripped of its coveted “Mid-Size Brewing Company of the Year” trophy, with the award going to Karl Strauss Brewing Company instead.
A new company that aims to provide small craft breweries with both growth capital and operating assistance has launched, and it has recruited a well-known industry veteran in the process. The company has tapped longtime beer industry veteran Adam Lambert — whose career includes sales and marketing stints at Virtue Cider, New Holland Brewing, Dogfish Head and Rogue Ales & Spirits — as its chief operating officer.
Amid declining production at its Redhook brewery in Woodinville, Wash., Craft Brew Alliance has laid off at least a dozen of the production employees who worked at the facility, Brewbound has learned. Reached for comment, CBA chief operating officer Scott Mennen confirmed the cutbacks, but declined to say exactly how many employees were let go, saying only that it was “about half” of the brewery’s production, packaging, warehousing, maintenance and brewery operations workers.
Newburyport Brewing Company today announced an investment into Isle Brewers Guild, a $12 million Rhode Island-based craft brewing cooperative currently being built in Pawtucket. Newburyport is the second craft beer company to invest in the Isle Brewers Guild (IBG), which aims to attract mid to large-scale craft breweries in need of extra capacity.
In this week’s edition of Last Call: the saga of MegaBrew is almost MegaThrough; Drizly launches its new online marketplace and Southern Oregon Brewing shuts its doors.
Two Beers Brewing – and its fast-growing hard cider brand, Seattle Cider Company – have been sold to the Agrial Group, a leading French agri-business cooperative that does business across the beverage, dairy and food industries. Official financial terms were not disclosed. The transaction closed earlier this month, according to Joel VandenBrink, the founder of both companies.
Seven months after it launched its cider brand, Cidergeist, throughout Massachusetts, Cincinnati-based Rhinegeist Brewery this week said it would begin distributing its core beer offerings to the Bay State as well. And Bell’s Brewery today announced formal plans to expand distribution to Texas in 2017, inking agreements with 14 distributors throughout the state.
Beginning January, 1, 2017, Sierra Nevada will introduce two new core products: The first, Sidecar Orange Pale Ale, is a 5.3 percent pale ale brewed with oranges that the company hopes will generate interest from consumers craving a more fruit-forward drinking experience. A second product, Tropical Torpedo, will also look to capitalize on a growing shift toward citrus and tropical IPA variants.
In an effort to focus on the development of international Heineken brands, and their integration within the U.S. market, Heineken USA this month announced the creation of Five Points Trading Company. The new venture, aimed at “incubating a range of popular global beers in the U.S.,” will assume importer responsibilities for the Red Stripe, Tiger, Birra Moretti, Affligem, Murphy’s, Prestige, Sagres and Mort Subite brands.
MillerCoors yesterday announced plans to transition marketing responsibilities for its two largest craft brands — Blue Moon and Jacob Leinenkugel – away from its Tenth and Blake craft and import division. Tenth and Blake chief Scott Whitley explained the rationale behind the move in an email to distributors yesterday, noting the increased marketing demands needed to grow what he called “powerhouse” brands.
The Colorado beer distribution landscape is consolidating once again, this time with multi-state beer, wine and spirits wholesaler Breakthru Beverage broadening its reach in the state. The company today announced the acquisition of craft and import beer wholesaler C.R. Goodman. Specific financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
One month after it announced a sale to MillerCoors, Texas’ Revolver Brewing has made its first official distribution transition to Dallas-based MillerCoors wholesaler, Andrews Distributing.
After completing an $8 million expansion earlier this year, Chicago’s Revolution Brewing is now equipped with 150,000 barrels of capacity. They’ll finish 2016 somewhere around 75,000 barrels or, expressed differently, about half of what it is capable of producing. And with new retail opportunities getting tougher to find in its home state, the company has begun looking elsewhere for growth. That’s why in June, the company quietly launched in Wisconsin with General Beverage. It’s also why it will enter New York City with Manhattan Beer in October.
The era of microbrewery consolidation is underway, and latest craft deal to cross the newswire is between a pair of small producers in Arizona. Fast-growing Huss Brewing Company, founded in South Tempe just three years ago by husband-and-wife team Jeff and Leah Huss, today announced its acquisition of the more established Papago Brewing Company, which was founded in 2001 in Scottsdale.
