• 📊 Flavor and Crossover Products Lead 2024
• 🤝 Spindrift Sold; Dave Burwick Named CEO
• 👩‍⚖️ The Legal Issues On Tap For Bev-Alc In 2025
• 📰 News from Brown-Forman & Boston Beer
• 💸 2024 Price Hikes: Average Case Price Over $30

Bump Williams Consulting's (BWC) theme for 2024: “Crossover canned flavor.” 

The firm analyzed the top 100 brand families across beer, wine and spirits based on YTD dollar sales in NIQ off-premise scans (ending December 21), and identified the top performers in three categories: momentum, magnitude and innovation.

Williams wrote: “That [crossover canned flavor] summation is somewhat tongue-in-cheek because in reality, the real learning here is that whether it comes to momentum, growth or innovation, 2024 has shown that consumers are looking well beyond the ‘classics’ when it comes to satisfying their beverage-alcohol occasions and those new choices now run the spectrum from flavor-centric to spirits-based to alcohol-free and/or of foreign-origin.”

Flavor-Forward Innovations Continue to Top Charts

To rank top innovation brand families, BWC analyzed the top 100 across beer, wine and spirits that sold less than 100 CEs in 2023, and ranked by YTD dollar sales. 

Common themes among top innovations in beer include “flavor-heavy entrants and “cross-over or extensions from existing/known quantities," including beer category entrants from spirits producers, and vice versa. 

12 of the top 15 beer innovations would be considered “flavor-heavy,” with the exception of No. 7 Real American Beer, the light lager brand backed by Hulk Hogan and now with investment from WWE, which added +$1.7 million YTD, and No. 8 1300 Mile Brewing. 

Other top beer innovation brand families included:

• No. 1 Diageo’s Captain Morgan FMBs (+$19 million);
• No. 2 Molson Coors’ Happy Thursday (+$18.4 million);
• No. 3 Monster Brewing’s Nasty Beast Hard Tea (+$17.4 million);
• No. 4 Happy Dad Hard Tea ($+8.4 million);
• No. 5 AriZona Beverage’s Jumex Hard Nectar (+$6.8 million);
• No. 6 Pink Whitney (+$3.8 million);
• No. 9 Boulevard Brewing’s Quirktails (+$800,000);
• No. 10 Lift Bridge cocktail-inspired FMBs (+$700,000);
• No. 11 Jason Aldean-backed Teabird hard sweet tea (+$400,000);
• No. 12 Spiked Jones Hard Craft Soda (+$400,000);
• No. 13 Troëgs Freaky Squeeze FMB (+$300,000);
• No. 14 Tilray-owned 10 Barrel Pub Ice FMB (+$300,000);
• No. 15 Nectar Hard Seltzer (+$300,000). 

Pink Whitney, a flavored vodka collaboration between New Amsterdam Vodka and professional hockey player Ryan Whitney, made the top beer innovations list due to a 15% ABV malt-based version of its 1.5 fl. oz. packages, BWC’s Dave Williams told Brewbound. The move has been made by other spirits brands such as Sazerac’s Fireball to expand the amount of stores the product can be sold in. 

Insiders can read more, including which beer suppliers launched top innovations in wine and spirits, and who topped the charts for growth momentum and magnitude in 2024.

San Francisco-based private investment group Gryphon Investors has reached an agreement to acquire a majority stake in sparkling water maker Spindrift Beverage Company, and is tapping former Boston Beer CEO Dave Burwick as its new CEO.

The deal is expected to close sometime in Q1. A Wall Street Journal story in December indicated that a deal with Gryphon Investors could be valued above $650 million.

Spindrift founder and CEO Bill Creelman will retain a “significant equity stake” in the business while shifting into a new role as chairman of the board. 

Founded in 2010, Massachusetts-based Spindrift hit its stride after early experiments in craft soda evolved into its flagship sparkling water blended with fresh squeezed fruit juice, a concept that proved a hit with consumers and retailers seeking a differentiated product within the saturated category. 

Spindrift dollar sales totaled over $275 million while volume increased +22% through the 52-week period ending December 28, 2024, according to Goldman Sachs analysis of NIQ data. The brand has also dabbled in innovation, including Spindrift Spiked hard seltzer.

Brewbound readers can read the full story for FREE courtesy of our sibling publication BevNET. 

Bev-alc lawyers are holding their breath as they await the federal government’s standpoint on alcohol-related policy under a new presidential administration. 

Tariff talks are among the top concerns, as well as a turn in health policies, such as new dietary guidelines and possible labeling requirements. In the meantime, there are other regulatory updates and areas of increased enforcement that legal minds are keeping an eye on.

From social media advertising to shipping regulations, BevNET spirits editor Ferron Salniker spoke with leading bev-alc attorneys about key topics for suppliers to watch.

Insiders can read more.

🥃  Brown-Forman is laying off 648 workers – about 12% of the company’s 5,400-person global workforce – and restructuring its executive leadership team, it announced in a statement. 

Brown-Forman’s Louisville-based cooperage will also close by late April, which will impact around 210 hourly and salaried employees, as part of the 648 job cuts. The company was the only major spirits company still producing its own barrels, and will now source barrels from an external supplier. The layoffs follow four straight quarters of sales declines.

👨🏻‍⚖️  A former sales rep’s lawsuit against Boston Beer challenging the company’s non-compete clause hit a snag last week when Judge George A. O’Toole Jr. denied her request for a temporary restraining order (TRO) and preliminary injunction against the company’s policy. 

Former BBC rep Casey Gospodarek failed to establish “a likelihood of irreparable harm” because the injury she suffered as a result of not being able to work for certain bev-alc competitors “was monetary and calculable,” and th•ree-month delay between her initial complaint and movement for the TRO “undercuts her argument,” O’Toole wrote in his decision.

Insiders can read more about the lawsuit’s initial filing in February 2024.

🍎  Vermont Hard Cider Company (Woodchuck, Wyder’s) is set to enter a sales and marketing partnership with portfolio company U.S. Beverage (Uinta, Moosehead, Captain Lawrence) on January 27. Northeast Drinks Group will retain ownership of VCC and produce the portfolio at its Middlebury, Vermont-based facility, while USB will have the “exclusive right” to represent its brands in the market. “Many” VCC employees will join USB, according to a press release.

Insiders can read more about the similar deal USB and Captain Lawrence struck in 2023.

The average case price for beer category items in 2024 increased +$0.63, to $30.57, in Circana-tracked off-premise retailers. The price per case increased the most in c-stores (+$0.84, to $32.55) compared to grocery stores (+$0.49, to $29.97). 

Hard seltzer and non-alcoholic beer each increased the price per case by more than $1, increasing +$1.47 and +$1.56, respectively, across all Circana-tracked off-premise retail outlets. The average case price for hard seltzer in 2024 was $39.66, while a case of NA beer averaged $36.58. 

Case prices increased in every beer category segment:

• Imports +$0.54, to $37.13;
• Domestic premium +$0.41, to $24.84;
• Domestic sub-premium +$0.42, to $19.65;
• FMBs +$0.56, to $40.58;
• Craft +$0.66, to $43.30;
• Domestic super premium +$0.02, to $30.31;
• Hard cider +$0.62, to $48.51;
• Assorted +$0.68, to $47.44.

6 top 25 vendors took price per case up more than $1 in 2024:

• Mark Anthony Brands +$1.27, to $41.11 per case;
• Kirin-Lion +$1.02, to $44.67;
• Sierra Nevada +$1.08, to $43.24;
• Heineken-owned Lagunitas +$1.69, to $43.95;
• Sazerac +$4.73, to $160.48;
• Duvel USA-owned Firestone Walker +$1.11, to $40.22.

On the flip side, the average case price for NA beer maker Athletic Brewing declined -$1.18, to $42.89. The next closest price cut was Clubtails-maker Geloso Beverage, which took its average case price down -$0.73, to $46.73.

Leaders of the newly former Barrel One Collective shared their vision for the new platform, which was formed from the merger of Harpoon Brewery’s parent company Mass. Bay Brewing and Smuttynose’s home of FinestKind Brewing. 

Harpoon co-founder and CEO Dan Kenary and FinestKind CEO Steve Kierstead explained how the platform came together, how open they are to adding to the collective and the types of partners they’d welcome, and how they’re approaching innovation with a portfolio that now boasts 14 brands. 

Listen here or on your preferred podcast platform.