Another week, another consolidation of small breweries. The week started with New Jersey’s Cape May Brewery announcing plans to acquire Flying Fish, one of the Garden State’s oldest breweries.
Noted New Jersey expert Jess reported that the transaction is expected to close in May and will give Cape May 25,000 barrels of additional capacity.
The trend of small breweries — and in several cases, legacy breweries — being merged with or acquired by similar-sized peers seems to be an ongoing theme this year.
Others include:
- Drake’s (founded in 1989) acquiring Bear Republic (1995);
- Full Circle Brewing (2000) merging with Speakeasy Ales & Lagers (1997);
- Karben4 (2012) acquiring the intellectual property of Ale Asylum (2006);
- Dokkaebier (2020) acquiring Federation Brewing (2014);
- No Fo Brew (2019) acquiring Tantrum Brewing (2018).
There’s likely more deals than this. I’d expect to see a lot more of this trend in the future as the craft beer market matures and growth becomes harder to achieve.
Just look at the number of platforms on the 2022 Brewers Association list of the top 50 craft breweries by volume. About a quarter of the top 50 are platforms or made up of acquired brands.
In other news …
Big changes at the top of Rhinegeist. Adam Bankovich was promoted to interim CEO of the Cincinnati craft brewery, taking over for Mike Parks. Bankovich joined Rhinegeist in October as chief commercial officer. Look for more info on this move in the coming days.
It’s a big week for Seattle’s San Juan Seltzer, which officially launched its new Doubles 8.4% ABV hard seltzer brand. The company hit profitability last year and is bullish on this year following its move to Columbia Distributing in its home state.
Craft beer growth trends were pretty blah in Q1. So where are the opportunities? Zoe and I nerd out with Bump Williams Consulting’s Dave Williams on the latest edition of Data Club. Insiders can watch here.
Zoe was on the road this week covering the National Beer Wholesalers Association’s Legislative Conference. The theme was a familiar one, beating back the spirits industry’s attempts for greater market access and lowered state excise taxes for canned cocktails.
A district court judge tossed a consumer lawsuit that alleged Molson Coors’ Topo Chico Margarita Hard Seltzer was deceptively labeled because it is fermented and lacks tequila.
U.S. District Judge Cathy Siebel wasn’t having it: “The product’s label contains no reference to ‘tequila’ and … the context provided by the product’s front label makes clear that it is a ‘hard seltzer,’ not a ready-to-drink cocktail containing tequila. Accordingly, the ingredient list confirms what the absence of the word ‘tequila’ on the label suggests – that the product does not contain it.”
It was another bad week of off-premise sales for Anheuser-Busch’s Bud Light brand amid the conservative-led boycott of the brand due to a marketing activation with social media influencer and transwoman Dylan Mulvaney. The numbers for the one-week period ending April 15, per NIQ off-premise data shared by Bump Williams Consulting:
- Dollar sales -17% during the week;
- Dollar share of premium beer -6.7%;
- Volume sales -21.1;
- Share of premium volume -6.5%.
Also, two marketing execs were put on leave, either voluntarily (per a spokesperson) or not voluntarily (per the Wall Street Journal).
The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation has filed a pair of complaints against Hard MTN Dew distributor Blue Cloud, alleging the PepsiCo subsidiary violated statutes in nine license applications by not disclosing it is owned by the soda giant.
The Boston Beer and Beam Suntory joint venture discontinued its first release: Sauza Agave Cocktails, a line of Mexican-inspired 8% ABV RTDs, launched in March 2022 as a malt-based extension of Beam Suntory’s Sauza tequila brand.
More than half of beer category volume growth in the on-premise in the past 52 weeks (ending February 25) was attributed to imported beer growth (52%) versus growth from other beer segments (48%), according to market research firm NIQ’s on-premise arm CGA. Mexican beer drove 79% of imports’ own growth.
On this week’s Brewbound Podcast, Brewers Association president and CEO Bob Pease previewed the upcoming Craft Brewers Conference (May 7-10) and offered tips for first timers, shared his message to craft brewers and opined about craft growth trends and small brewer consolidation. Listen (FREE) here.
Speaking of the CBC, Brewbound will kick off CBC week with Brew Talks on Sunday, May 7, from 2-5 p.m. CT at Nashville Underground. Zoe and I will be hosting talks with leaders from Dogfish Head, Athletic Brewing, Greater Good Imperial Brewing, Monday Night Brewing, Hi-Wire Brewing, Weather Souls, the National Black Brewers Association, Harlem Brewing, Black Frog Brewery, and the Tennessee Craft Brewers Guild. Join us for networking, beers and beer biz chats. See the full lineup here, and get your tickets now, with some of the proceeds benefiting the state guild.
That’s a wrap on the week. I’m really looking forward to seeing a lot of folks during CBC week. Join us if you can at Brew Talks. A big thank you to all of our Insider subscribers. If you’d like to support our work, please check out this link.
We’ll be back next week.