News

Following news that Kings & Convicts-owned Ballast Point had ceased production at its Miramar, California brewery and sold the facility to an unnamed buyer, the company has confirmed two rounds of layoffs, San Diego Beer News reported last week.

Alisa Bowens-Mercado is on a mission to make Rhythm Brewing the first nationally distributed beer brand owned by a woman of color. She discusses that goal and all the stops along the way, including a pop-up summer beer garden in the brewery’s hometown of New Haven, Connecticut, and ready-to-drink espresso martinis.

In the latest installment of Brewbound’s A Round With – a weekly Insider-exclusive Q&A series with industry leaders – Alisa Bowens-Mercado, founder and owner of Rhythm Brewing, discusses her quest to make the Connecticut brewery the first nationally distributed beer brand owned by a woman of color and all the stops along the way, including a pop-up summer beer garden in New Haven and ready-to-drink espresso martinis.

Draft beer recorded gains in both volume (+12%) and dollar sales (+32%) year-over-year (YoY) during Memorial Day weekend, on-premise data firm BeerBoard reported.

On a special bonus episode of the Brewbound Podcast, we talk a lot about lagers and marketing with leaders from Jack’s Abby, Von Ebert and Not Your Hobby Marketing Solutions.

Sapporo-Stone Brewing is officially making Zach Keeling its new CEO. Keeling was appointed interim CEO in January when then-CEO Maria Stipp stepped down from the role after guiding the Escondido, California-headquartered brewery through its 2022 acquisition by the Japanese brewing giant and through its integration.

Brown-Forman announced yesterday a -8% decline in reported net sales to $1.0 billion in Q4 FY 2024 driven by lower volumes of tequila and whiskey, and the broader slowdown in the spirits industry.

The once-booming flavored malt beverage (FMB) segment is “showing some concerning declarations over recent weeks,” Bump Williams Consulting (BWC) founder Bump Williams noted in a recent report. FMB volume gains dropped by half – from +2.2%, to +1.1% – from the four-week period to the one-week period ending May 18, according to NIQ retail measurement data cited by BWC.

Following a flood of news last week, the Brewbound team recaps the latest major headlines, including a billionaire purchasing Anchor, Boston Beer sale rumors and Monster shutting down operations of another brewery in Texas.

Memorial Day bev-alc shopping “broadly met or exceeded distributor expectations,” according to Goldman Sachs analyst Bonnie Herzog in the investment management firm’s latest Beverage Bytes survey of distributors and retailers.

The Brewers Association (BA) separated contract-brewed and alternating proprietorship (alt prop) small breweries for the first time in this year’s compilation of craft production in the May/June issue of New Brewer Magazine.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is preparing a lawsuit against Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits, the nation’s largest alcohol distributor, over its pricing practices, according to a Politico report published yesterday.

Adam Beauchamp was named CEO of Creature Comforts last week, a decade after helping found the Athens, Georgia-based craft brewery. Beauchamp discussed his plans for the brewery moving forward, its growth drivers and opportunities ahead.

Jinx Drinx is a new ready-to-drink cocktail that that comes in a pouch with patent-pending packaging that includes a sealed-in straw to mitigate drink tampering and drink and drug-facilitated sexual assault.