Bill Murray has reached that rare exalted status in the pop lexicon where he could fart on a puppy and people would still love it. As such, it’s no surprise that in Portland, Maine, brewers have launched a campaign to bring the Ghostbusters star/internet meme to the city to celebrate Portland Beer Week.
Victory Brewing will expand distribution throughout Nevada per an agreement with Southern Wine & Spirits, the brewery announced yesterday.The company, based in Downingtown, Pa., plans to launch in Nevada on September 20. The state will be the 35th in Victory’s distribution footprint.
The rumor mill knows little downtime. After a few short months of relative inactivity, the mill’s blades are spinning again with the Wall Street Journal reporting that global beer giant Anheuser-Busch InBev is actively seeking financing for a possible takeover of SABMiller Plc. A source close to the matter told the website that A-B is waiting to secure financing for the deal, valued at roughly $122 billion, before it starts any formal discussions with SABMiller.
Finch’s Beer will expand distribution throughout North Carolina per an agreement with Mutual Distributing, the wholesaler announced last week, with an initial rollout slated for October. Initially, the brewery, which is based in Chicago, will hit the market in the greater Raleigh and Charlotte areas, but plans to gradually expand distribution to all parts of the state with its line of canned 4-packs.
Boulevard Brewing has announced plans to expand distribution throughout Florida per an agreement with Brown Distributing, an Anheuser-Busch wholesaler. Boulevard beers will be available to the market beginning early October, according to a statement issued by the company, growing its total distribution footprint to 28 states and the District of Columbia.
The Brewers Association (BA) announced this morning that it has promoted Bob Pease, a 21-year veteran of trade group, from COO to CEO. The promotion, per a statement from the BA, “formalizes much of the responsibility that Pease has already progressively adopted,” since taking over as COO in 2010.
In a lawsuit filed in Milwaukee County Circuit court, beer giant MillerCoors has accused two former marketing executives of embezzling more than $10 million over the last 13 years. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, MillerCoors alleges that David Colletti and Paul Edwards conspired with a dozen people and 15 companies to file invoices for undelivered services in which the individuals would split the pay.
Hoping to provide knowledgeable support for the volunteers that keep the beer flowing at the Great American Beer Festival (GABF), the Brewers Association (BA) has announced the return of its ‘Beer Geeks’ program. Consisting of 100 homebrew club members and other so-called ‘beer geeks,’ the program, which was introduced last year, aims to provide volunteers with access to “core brewery and brand information” about the beers they’re pouring.
Having just moved into a new facility earlier this summer after brewing at capacity for four years, Smuttynose Brewing has announced plans to expand distribution to Texas. The Hampton, N.H.-based brewery today announced it has inked a wholesale agreement with Ben E. Keith Beverages, which will distribute Smuttynose brands throughout Dallas, Austin, Houston, and San Antonio, with rollout events slated for this week.
Making its biggest geographic leap to date, San Francisco’s Almanac Beer has announced plans to expand distribution to New York. Per a new partnership with S.K.I. Beer, Almanac’s lineup of beers will be available throughout the state’s five boroughs and on Long Island both on draft and in bottles beginning September 14.
Using U.S. Census data from 2010, the Brewers Association (BA) believes that more Americans than ever before now live near breweries. BA economist Bart Watson reports that 52.9 million Americans, or 17.1 percent of the population, live in a ZIP code tabulation area with a brewery. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, ZIP code tabulation areas are “generalized areal representations of United States Postal Service (USPS) ZIP code service areas.”
California Gov. Jerry Brown has signed into law a bill that makes it illegal to deface the name of a manufacturer as it appears on a metal keg without written consent, a measure designed to combat theft. While already illegal to recycle kegs bearing a manufacturer’s name without written permission, ethically dubious, albeit green-minded opportunists circumvented the law by destroying any given keg’s insignia.
After residents of Crested Butte vocalized anger at what they felt was a pittance offering of $250,000, Anheuser-Busch will now double the amount of money it’s spending to temporarily take over the town as part of a marketing stunt, according to the Denver Post.
Victory Brewing today announced plans to expand its presence in the mid-atlantic region as the company looks to open a new brewpub in Leesburg, Va. It’s the company’s fourth such establishment, but the first outside of its home state of Pennsylvania. Located inside a 110,560 sq. ft. mixed-used development belonging to the private equity real estate firm L4 Capital Partners, the brewpub, which will span three floors, will open in the second quarter of 2016.
