The Brewers Association (BA) laid off 23% of its staff last week “in order to maintain the long-term viability” of the national trade group, which represents the interests of small and independent U.S. craft brewers.
Just across the Hudson River from Manhattan in Jersey City, New Jersey, Departed Soles Brewing founder Brian Kulbacki had to pivot his business from a thriving taproom to home delivery in the matter of an afternoon.
Beer category dollar sales in off-premise retailers tracked by market research firm Nielsen increased 12.3%, to $856 million, for the week ending April 18, compared to the same one-week last year.
The majority of New York craft brewers have seen their sales drop by 75% or more and nearly half have stopped production entirely, according to a survey conducted by the New York State Brewers Association (NYSBA).
More aid money is on the way for small businesses. President Donald Trump today signed into law a fourth stimulus package that includes $310 billion in additional funding for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which ran out of money and stopped accepting applications on April 16.
The Brewers Association (BA) today announced it has formed a partnership with nonprofit fundraising organization Bottleshare to establish the “Believe in Beer Fund” to support breweries and state brewers guilds across the country that have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The story of Boston Beer Company’s Truly Hard Seltzer brand remains the same; the company can’t keep up with demand for the hard seltzer category’s second largest brand. The mid-March pantry stock up caused by the novel coronavirus shutting down virtually all on-premise sales led to a spike in Truly sales earlier than expected.
COVID-19 is forcing brewery owners across the country to make hard decisions. Surly Brewing founder Omar Ansari has made his share of those decisions over the last month after shuttering his beer hall, pizza place and event space in mid-March. Couple those closures with the shutdown of on-premise sales, and around 60% of Surly’s revenue evaporated overnight.
German officials today cancelled the country’s famed Oktoberfest celebration due to concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic. The California Craft Brewers Association — a nonprofit trade group that represents the interests of the state’s craft brewers — announced today the cancellation of its “Craft Beer Summit,” which was scheduled for September 9-12 in Long Beach.
A pair of recent surveys of craft brewery owners in South Carolina and California have revealed the financial pressures the novel coronavirus disease COVID-19 have placed on small beer companies. A survey released by the South Carolina Brewers Guild on April 14 showed that 80% of the state’s breweries may be forced to close within the next three months if the current shutdown of on-premise and at-the-brewery sales remain in place.
Drizly, the on-demand e-commerce marketplace for alcoholic beverages, has seen record numbers of both new customers and sales since the COVID-19 pandemic began forcing millions of Americans to stay home in mid-March.
After being shut out of receiving loans from the coronavirus relief bill’s Paycheck Protection Program, small business owners have filed class action lawsuits against some of the country’s biggest banks, alleging unfair business practices and fraud.
More than 1,900 fewer beer category (beer/FMB/cider) products — a majority of which were made by independent and longtail craft producers — were sold in off-premise retailers during the first six weeks of the COVID-19 crisis compared to the same period in 2019, according to market research firm Nielsen.
Barry Holmes, CEO of The Bruery and Offshoot Beer Co., offers tips to breweries considering getting into direct-to-consumer or membership club business and shares how The Bruery is engaging its members via weekly, virtual happy hours on Thursday nights. He also discusses how adding a line of canned hazy IPAs and a pilsner through the Offshoot brand has helped fortify The Bruery’s business, which was originally built on barrel-aged and sour offerings.
