Seasonal trends for onsite brewery sales have remained relatively consistent since January 2021, but “in real terms” – i.e. accounting for inflation – onsite sales continue to decline, according to Brewers Association (BA) staff economist Matt Gacioch, citing data from Arryved.
Craft beer has entered “no to negative growth territory,” Brewers Association (BA) chief economist Bart Watson said during a year-end webinar last week. “We were in double-digit growth as recently as 2014, 2015, and then we moved into kind of a more developed, slow, single-digit growth rate,” Watson said. “COVID hit, and we had the worst year in craft history in 2020 with a partial bounce back in 2021.
This year will be the first, other than 2020, in which independent breweries’ volume has declined in the modern era of craft beer, according to the Brewers Association’s (BA) 2023 Year in Beer report.
A bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives seeks to jumpstart business travel and dining to support the hospitality industry and would offer a tax credit for unmerchantable inventory that spoiled during the pandemic, including out-of-code beer.
U.S. brewers shipped an estimated 15 million barrels of beer in May 2021, an +8.9% increase (more than 1.2 million barrels) compared to May 2020, according to the Beer Institute (BI), citing unofficial estimates of domestic tax paid shipments from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB).
Beer consumption by Americans did not increase during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to research by Echelon Insights on behalf of the Beer Institute (BI), a national trade association.
Seventy-seven percent of consumers are spending the same or more than they did pre-COVID-19, according to the latest CGA on-premise report spanning June 4-7.
Brewers Association chief economist Bart Watson explored why draft beer sales have yet to recover to pre-pandemic levels in his latest members’ only analysis.
The U.S. beer industry’s economic output has increased by $4 billion since 2018, which is equivalent to 1.6% of the U.S. gross domestic product, according to the “Beer Serves America” report — a biennial study commissioned by the Beer Institute (BI) and the National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA).
Anheuser-Busch InBev has forged a master distributor agreement with Canteen Spirits, while its growth and innovation arm ZX Ventures has made an investment in the 2-year-old ready-to-drink canned cocktail brand.
Mass. Bay Brewing Company and the Massachusetts Brewers Guild (MBG) have launched Hop Forward Equality, a website with resources and a job board with the goal of creating a more diverse and equitable industry and consumer base for Bay State breweries. “We have to ask ourselves why, and we have to do a better job truly encompassing and embracing our communities,” MBG executive director Katie Stinchon said in a press release.
The COVID-19 pandemic driven shutdown of on-premise service at bars and restaurants led to a big but expected cut in draft packaging last year, according to the 2020 “Package Mix Report” shared by the Beer Institute and compiled by the National beer Wholesalers Association’s Department of Industry Affairs.
Sierra Nevada has announced it will reopen its breweries in Chico, California, and Mills River, North Carolina, to the public in May after what will be a 14-month hiatus from on-site service, according to a report in the Chico Enterprise-Record. Philadelphia-headquartered, on-demand delivery platform goPuff announced the completion of a $1.15 billion fundraising round earlier this week.
Several pieces of legislation working their ways through Congress would bring much needed relief to the hospitality industry — including breweries, brewpubs and taprooms — as they continue to struggle during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Off-premise beer category dollar sales increased 15.7% year-to-date through January 23, compared to the same period last year, market research firm NielsenIQ reported. For the four weeks ending January 23 (which includes December 28-31, 2020), off-premise dollars sales of the beer category — which includes core beer, flavored malt beverages, hard seltzers, ciders and malt liquor — increased 14.2%, indicating slight acceleration after January 1.
Federal excise tax cuts for brewers and importers have finally been made permanent. After nearly a week of uncertainty, President Donald Trump on Sunday signed into law the $900 billion economic relief package and $1.4 trillion government funding bill Congress passed last week.
Permanent excise tax cuts for brewers and importers was just a signature away. However, getting pen to paper on the $900 billion economic relief package and a $1.4 trillion government funding bill passed by Congress is now in question after President Donald Trump unexpectedly pushed back against the measures.
