California

Diageo, the importer of Guinness and Harp, has struck an agreement to move its brands from Watsonville-based Couch Distributing and South San Francisco-based Matagrano, Inc. to the Reyes Beer Division in California.

Buellton, California-based Figueroa Mountain Brewery has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in order to take on new investment from New York-based private equity firm Creekstone LLC.

Josh Landan believes he’s found another Saint Archer in the nearly nine-month-old Ashland Hard Seltzer brand. Landan, who co-founded the San Diego craft brewery in 2013 and sold it to Molson Coors in 2015, recalled growing the San Diego craft brewery from 7,200 barrels in Year One, to 17,000 barrels in Year Two and 35,000 barrels in three years. Now, Landan believes he’s found another rocket ship in Ashland.

When California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a stay-at-home order and shut down on-premise bars and restaurants to stop the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in mid-March, 92% of San Diego-based Societe Brewing’s business was draft beer. The shutdown stopped the 1,000 tap handles pouring Societe’s beer at 700 San Diego restaurants and bars from flowing. Societe, like so many other small craft breweries, was left scrambling to figure out how to continue on.

Stone Brewing’s 2020 CEO search didn’t take a year to complete. In fact, it took less than a month. The Escondido, California-headquartered craft brewery announced today the hiring of former Lagunitas Brewing CEO Maria Stipp as its next CEO.

Athens, Georgia-based Creature Comforts Brewing will become a bi-coastal craft beer brand next year with the construction of a taproom and brewery in downtown Los Angeles, the company announced yesterday. The long-awaited opening of Brooklyn-based Other Half Brewing’s taproom and production facility in Washington, D.C., now has an October 2020 opening date, according to a press release today.

An 805 line extension is coming soon to California. Firestone Walker will start a 60-day test of 805 Cerveza — its first line extension of flagship 805 blonde ale — in early August in three California counties.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom today announced bars, breweries, brewpubs and pubs must cease all indoor on-premise service, as well as outdoor service, unless food is offered.

Modern Times has furloughed employees at five of its seven taprooms, the San Diego-headquartered brewery wrote in an email Thursday night. Three breweries in Anheuser-Busch InBev’s Brewers Collective, the craft division of the world’s largest beer manufacturer, have temporarily closed their taprooms after employees tested positive for COVID-19. Sierra Nevada plans to keep its taprooms, gift shops and brewery tours closed for the foreseeable future.

A little over half a year after media executive John Gallegos took a majority stake in San Diego-based SouthNorte Beer, the brewery is launching its first major advertising campaign and has hired Constellation Brands veteran Breanne Heal as its first vice president of sales and marketing.

Days after Texas and Florida mandated that bars shut down for on-premise consumption, California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sunday ordered an immediate end to on-site sales at bars in seven counties, as well as recommended that eight additional counties take similar action in an effort to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.

San Diego, California-based AleSmith Brewing’s 25 anniversary celebration was slated to start in late March and continue on through the end of 2020. But those parties were either canceled or postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Russian River Brewing Company’s annual release of Pliny the Younger triple IPA drew visitors from 47 states and 14 countries and generated $5.1 million in economic impact to the local economy, an increase of 22.6% over the 2019 release, according to a study conducted by the Sonoma County Economic Development Board.