Total beverage-alcohol sales have declined -7.7% year-over-year (YoY) for the week ending November 17, according to market research firm Circana.

Sapporo-Stone Brewing will cease the exporting of Stone beers in January 2025, a spokesperson for the company confirmed. Stone exports its products to 50 countries via a network of international distributors, according to its website.

Dennis Peek, the CEO of Heineken-owned Lagunitas Brewing Company, will end his term leading the craft brewery at the end of 2024, the company announced Thursday. Peek ascended to the top job at the Petaluma, California-headquartered brewery in February 2020, just weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic forced the closure of the on-premise channel and upended the craft beer industry.

Upper Hand Brewery, opened by Bell’s Brewery founder Larry Bell in 2014, is about to change hands. Kirin-owned New Belgium acquired Escanaba, Michigan-based Upper Hand when it merged with Bell’s in 2021.

In a continuation of last month’s trends, 15 of the top 25 beer category vendors have recorded dollar sales and volume declines year-to-date (YTD) through November 3, according to market research firm Circana.

Could craft off-premise scan data be beginning to turn the corner as the calendar heads toward the holidays? In the four-week period ending November 3 (L4W), craft dollar sales declined -1.9% year-over-year (YoY) and volume (case sales) declined -3.4% in multi-outlet grocery, mass retail and convenience stores (MULO+C), according to the most recent report from market research firm Circana.

Now operating in its third century, Providence, Rhode Island-headquartered Narragansett Brewing is proof that it’s possible to stay afloat on the industry’s changing tides and remain resonant with drinkers. In the latest edition of A Round With – an exclusive Q&A series with industry leaders for Brewbound Insiders – we caught up with Lee Lord, head brewer at Narragansett’s innovation brewery and taproom in Providence.

More than a decade after the first states legalized recreational cannabis, the interaction between it and craft beer remains as nebulous as ever. Plus, ss intoxicating hemp beverages proliferate, the Beer Institute recently clarified its positions on the segment.

The beer category’s sluggish summer was apparent in Molson Coors’ third quarter earnings, which the company reported last week. Net sales in the Americas declined -11%, driven by a -15.6% decline in financial volumes “and unfavorable foreign currency impacts, partially offset by favorable price and sales mix,” Molson Coors wrote in its earnings report.

Lord Hobo Brewing and Lone Pine Brewing announced plans to merge today, bringing together a pair of New England craft breweries under a single ownership structure. The companies declined to share financial terms of the transaction, which is expected to close in Q4, pending regulatory approval.

Metal cans have regained the share of beer volume they lost in the prior year, according to the Beer Institute’s (BI) new packaging mix report. Cans accounted for 64.1% of beer volume in 2023, marking a return to the same share they held in 2021 after a slight dip to 62.9% in 2022.

Allagash Brewing is heading to the Land of 10,000 Lakes. The Portland, Maine-headquartered craft brewery will enter Minnesota this month with Clear River Beverage Company, it announced in a press release.

The Beer Institute (BI) has named Caitlin Harder its new director of public affairs.

Austin, Texas-based Independence Brewing is nearly old enough to drink itself. Founded in 2004, Independence has long been a bastion of traditional beer styles with Texan flair and has watched a dynamic craft beer scene grow up around it. Brewbound got a round with co-founder and president Amy Cartwright to look back on the brewery’s… Read more »