Boston Beer Company CEO Dave Burwick will step down and retire from the company’s board of directors, effective April 1. Michael Spillane, a Nike executive and lead director on Boston Beer’s board of directors, will supplant him.
Boston Beer’s Samuel Adams hopes to capitalize on the continued success of the Wicked brand family in 2022, starting with its new Wicked Party Pack variety pack, featured in the company’s regional Super Bowl ad this year.
Boston Beer Company founder and chairman Jim Koch discussed the future of core beer and his company’s fourth category offerings – including the forthcoming Hard Mtn Dew collaboration with PepsiCo – during Beer Business Daily’s annual Beer Industry Summit earlier this week.
Boston Beer Company’s “Your Cousin From Boston” ad campaign is entering the Super Bowl LVI ad conversation once again with a regional ad buy in 13 markets.
Lower than expected wholesaler inventory builds of Truly Hard Seltzer in the fourth quarter, as well as increased supply chain costs, have led Boston Beer Company to revise downward its shipment, gross margin and earnings per share projections for full-year 2021, according to a Form 8K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Thursday afternoon.
As headwinds hit the hard seltzer segment, Boston Beer Company executives reiterated their confidence in Truly Hard Seltzer’s ability to perform during a conference call to discuss the company’s third quarter earnings with investors and analysts on Thursday evening.
Boston Beer Company’s second quarter earnings call in July set the stage for a tumultuous third quarter that saw the company pull its financial guidance and anticipate write-off costs related to excess hard seltzer inventory, which was followed by a rush of investor lawsuits. Although the Q2 earnings report left analysts flummoxed and disappointed, the company’s third quarter earnings report came with less of a jolt but more of the residual sting of the slowdown in hard seltzer growth and lowered expectations.
Truly Hard Seltzer will say g’day to a new market in February 2022. Boston Beer Company will partner with the Campari Group to bring Truly to Australia next year, the company announced today.
PepsiCo CEO Ramon Laguarta emphasized that the soft drink maker has “been investing a lot in R&D” and believes its “pipeline is strong” during Tuesday’s third quarter call with investors and analysts.
Boston Beer Company’s hard seltzer woes are spilling over into the legal system. The maker of Truly Hard Seltzer, the second best-selling hard seltzer on the market, is now facing a proposed class action lawsuit for allegedly failing to disclose the deceleration in sales of Truly to investors.
Boston Beer Company’s innovation pipeline continues to pump out new brands as the fall approaches, announcing today a planned nationwide launch in November of Bevy Long Drink, a sparkling refresher inspired by a traditional Finnish cocktail that consists of gin, grapefruit soda, and tonic. However, Boston’s version of the beverage, checking in at 5.8% ABV, won’t contain spirits.
Despite recent slowdowns in hard seltzer sales trends, Boston Beer chief marketing officer Lesya Lysyj remains confident that the bubbly beverage and Truly Hard Seltzer are not going anywhere. “The category has become a mega category, and the growth is not done yet,” she told Brewbound.
Hard seltzer’s late summer slowdown has pushed several financial services firms to adjust their forecast for the sparkling segment’s performance. “We are incrementally more cautious on the beer and hard seltzer category based on feedback from our beer distributor contacts in our new proprietary ‘Beverage Bytes’ survey,” Goldman Sachs equity research analyst Bonnie Herzog wrote in a report published today.