Rubbing the guts of a Cascade hop off his nose, Andy Goeler is in awe of the 1,500 acres of hops under trellis that surround him, resting at the foot of northern Idaho’s Selkirk Mountain Range. He’s gushing poetic adjectives, verbally painting a picture that needs no help painting itself. After a career spanning three decades at Anheuser-Busch, Goeler is now two years into his tenure as CEO of Goose Island Beer.

SweetWater Brewing has tapped Superior Beverage Group for distribution coverage throughout the Columbus and Cleveland, Ohio markets, the brewery announced today. The news comes a month after Sweetwater, which is based in Atlanta, Ga.,detailed its initial plans to expand its reach in the Buckeye State. Youngstown, Akron, Canton and surrounding areas are also encompassed within Superior Beverage’s distribution territory, according to the statement.

A small Colorado ski town may, in fact, not be up for “Whatever.” While some residents of Crested Butte support the idea of Anheuser-Busch taking over the town, temporarily transforming it into a moneymaking fantasyland dubbed “Whatever,” others worry such a corporate affair would damage its image.

A new study from the Beer Institute has found that for every one job created by a brewery, an additional 45 jobs are supported in other industries, ranging from agriculture to transportation. To conduct the analysis, the Beer Institute commissioned the economic research firm John Dunham & Associations to look at the state-by-state excise tax collections on beer and compared those figures with the number of employees in any given business.

As the craft category continues to grow at a double-digit clip, brewers across the country, in an effort to keep up with growing demand, are investing heavily in facility expansions. A crop of mid-size and regional craft breweries located in the eastern half of the U.S. recently announced multi-million dollar expansion efforts which will enable those companies to not only expand production capabilities, but in some cases distribution footprints as well.

New Holland Brewing announced last week plans to launch distribution in four new markets in the central U.S., rounding its distribution footprint out to 24 states and Washington D.C., with 17 also carrying its line of spirits. Through a network of five wholesalers, the Holland, Mich.-based brewery will begin distributing its beers and spirits throughout Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas and Iowa, with launch events scheduled to take place in August and September.

Deschutes Brewery is continuing its eastward expansion. The Bend, Ore.-based company today announced plans to broaden its distribution in three Michigan cities — Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo and Lansing — this October. Its foray into Michigan with wholesaler partner West Side Beer Distributing will be the last “major” market expansion the brewery takes on in 2014, per a company statement.

A startup craft brewery in Kirkland, Wash. has been cleared for liftoff by the state’s liquor board. Chainline Brewing’s licensing application was approved by the Washington State Liquor Control Board on Tuesday, despite prior complaints filed with the city by Kirkland community members, who were concerned that the presence of a new brewery would pose a threat to public safety.

After initially announcing it would begin distributing to the market this October, Lagunitas Brewing covertly waltzed into Louisiana earlier this week. According to Eater NOLA, the Avenue Pub sent out an email to its mailing list on Sunday afternoon that read, “Lagunitas will be here Monday. We were asked to keep it quiet.”

For Joel VandenBrink, founder of both Seattle Cider Co. and Two Beers Brewery, running two markedly different businesses means developing two markedly different business strategies. Having just invested close to half a million dollars in an expansion that enabled it to triple capacity, Seattle Cider is getting set to open a second facility that will again significantly lift its production ceiling.

The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), as brewers well know, is responsible for approving all the beer labels that decorate retailers’ shelves across the country. The sexually charged double entendres, the gargoyles, they all need to be reviewed by the TTB before hitting the market. Or, more specifically, they need to be reviewed by Ken “Battle” Martin.

A Florida company claiming to have acquired the majority interest in a World of Beer franchise in Key West has sued the chain’s parent company, alleging it reneged on its initial approval of the deal months after the fact. According to the suit, filed in Hillsborough County Circuit Court, Alfa Professional HR Services, Inc. bought 60 percent of Craft Culture Key West, LLC, the franchisee of World of Beer’s Key West outpost in January.

Having made inroads in New England earlier this year with launches in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, D.G. Yuengling Brewery is taking another step toward filling out its footprint in the region by expanding distribution to Connecticut. According to The Courant, the Pottsville, Pa.-based brewery’s beers will be available at bars and restaurants in the Constitution State on September 22 with packaged offerings to follow shortly thereafter on October 6.

Concerns over public safety could block the tap lines Chainline Brewing is trying to open up in Kirkland, Wash. Worried citizens fear the new brewery slated to open in a shared commerce complex would pose a threat to public safety and lead to the overcrowding of an already busy parking lot.