Welcome to Brewbound’s Inside Look at the Beer Business for the week that was … Saturday, August 16, 2025.

While Taylor Swift’s New Heights pod episode this week may have had no sponsor ad reads or presenting sponsors 👀 . . . you can’t keep GARAGE BEER in a corner!

Ok well, actually you can – and it was in 2 very well-placed corners behind Jason Kelce during the duration of the entire conversation. 

Well done, fellas – gotta keep the happy couple in the lifestyle they’re accustomed to somehow.

Yeah, gotta love this chart ☝️ from a new GALLUP poll which I’m guessing you heard about this week. Granted, the poll consists of phoners with just 1,000 folks (which Bart Watson emphasized as well, among other aspects) – so take it as ya like . . . but it certainly tracks with data we see every week in this business. 

The poll also saw a majority of Americans say that drinking in moderation (1 or 2 drinks a day) is bad for one's health for the first time in the history of the poll. 

A majority of 18-34s have held that view in the poll since 2023, although the number of 35-54’s with a negative outlook on alcohol and health also increased 14 points YoY too.

NOT DIRECTLY RELATED, BUT …: OMMEGANG’s Belgium Comes to Cooperstown event on August 22 has now been canceled. Tickets will be refunded. If you’re still going up, the brewery will be open and will give you a full pour or flight of beers in the taproom if you show proof of ticket purchase. 

FINALLY: This headline 👇 in the WSJ last week also wasn’t great. Any chance we can make a vapor or cheek-pouch form of beer?

BUT HEY: Let’s forget about all of those problems, and what better way to forget things than with the new 3L boxes of 11.1% ABV BEATBOX for $18? Gotta keep that party going for those 46% of Americans who still drink! #BangForTheBuck

BEATBOX is 7-ELEVEN’s “fastest growing vendor” across all categories.

NEW TRAIL BREWING CO.

Regional Sales Rep – NJ

TRAIL MAGIC THC BEVERAGES

Market Manager – Florida

RUSSIAN RIVER BREWING CO

SIERRA NEVADA hired Angela Bloomer as its new VP of national accounts, coming over from P&G.

NORTH COAST BREWING promoted Jeff Robinson to national sales director.

GARAGE BEER promoted Corey Smale from VP of marketing to CCO. Former NFL defensive lineman Beau Allen was also hired as a creative director. 

NESHAMINY CREEK has promoted Kyle Park to the CEO position. He was previously VP of sales and marketing. 

Over at SAPPORO-STONE:

• Lizzie Younkin is now dedicated to STONE’s brand marketing
• Kaitlin Juarez will lead SAPPORO brand marketing
• Erin Smith, SVP of marketing, will oversee both brands.

Hires at 3 TIER BEVERAGES:

• Garrett Sandberg, as a consultant for the wine industry;
• Caroline Reeb, as marketing and business coordinator;
• Scott Schulte, as a consultant for the spirits industry;
• And Jacqueline Bichsel, as a social media and executive support specialist.

- 62%

The decline in U.S. spirits exports to Canada in H1 25 vs. H1 24. Also – French wine with dinner it is! American wine exports were -67%. 

Sales of American wine and spirits in the province of Ontario through its state-controlled LCBO locations are now . . . $0, according to the WSJ. We’ll see what that does for the 2025 number come early next year, but wine & liquor sales were $700M+ in 2024.

Well, not just at the CIRCLE K … as overall c-store sales were -3% YoY in Q2, worse than the -2.7% for H1 25 according to new JEFFERIES EQUITY research.

NIQ has c-store sales YTD through Aug 2 at -2.2%, with volume -4.7%. Both of those numbers are worse in the L4W ending Aug 2 (dollars -2.7%, volume -4.8%). 

• Only 2 categories – domestic super premium (MICH ULTRA) and cider – are up in dollars and volume YTD in the c-store category.

The c-store sector is beer’s single largest source of sales in the off-prem. 

ALSO IN C-STORES: 7-ELEVEN is planning on opening 1,300 new stores in the U.S. by 2030.

Yeah, both food (+3.9% YoY) and bev-alc (+3.4%) had higher rates of inflation in July than the overall CPI (+2.7%).

The away-from-home numbers for all 3 sectors are to blame in the alcohol number (hope you were sitting down for that one), but at least beer was the … least worse?

• Spirits: +3.9%
• Wine: +3.4%
• Beer: +3.1%

The at-home prices were a bit more mixed:

• Spirits: +0.8%
• Beer: +0.3%
• Wine: -0.8%

Jess has all of your other data on how beer case prices are doing across categories and more here.

Malt-based hard tea sales are not having a great summer (TWISTED TEA makes up 85% of this category): sales are -10% in the L13W ending July 12, with volume -11% according to NIQ data cited by BMI.

In the L4W ending July 12, those numbers fall to -13% and -15% respectively.

Last summer around that point, sales were +20% according to BMI, although that may have been significantly due to several new entrants into the category.

• For anyone missing legal arguments about what “beer” is – SCHILLING CIDER has filed a civil complaint against INCLINE CIDER, alleging breached contracts and shared confidential information with a competitor, some of which revolves around what defines a “recipe.” Y’all have fun with that one. 
• In other court news – a judge has indeed placed UNCLE NEAREST under the control of a neutral, third-party receiver, while the FARM CREDIT MID-AMERICA’s complaint regarding approx. $100M of debts works its way through proceedings.
• BOSTON BEER is giving its CFO Diego Reynoso a $1.2M stock grant as a retention bonus to keep him with the company as it works thru changes at the CEO position. The grant has a vesting date of August 11, 2026. 
• HAYDEN BEVERAGE is picking up the final element of the SCOUT business – its Idaho JV with COLUMBIA DISTRIBUTING. All employees will be picked up by HAYDEN. 
• BALLAST POINT has some new investors, and … honestly, I’m a little tapped out on ownership shifts with this brand – so Jess has ya covered here on the latest and gives a superb overview of how we got here.
• TILRAY is taking craft beer’s lead and turning up the uh, potency of its THC beverages – now offering 10mg versions of its FIZZY JANE’S and HAPPY FLOWER brands.

With a lotta newsletters to go until December, I’m saving some of my “best” material to incentivize ticket sales in this section ‘til at least the fall.

BEVNET’s Ferron Salniker joins the pod this week to dive into the latest developments in the UNCLE NEAREST court proceedings, and whether the APEROL-assisted Spaghett beverage trend is the fetch of Summer 2025.

PLUS: The BREWBOUND trio scheme together about how they can do the podcast from a beach house instead, while also diving into:

• BALL taking its ball and going home from the beer biz (somewhat)
• BOSTON BEER’s upcoming L.A. on-prem shutdowns and more.

This week’s beer goes out to Corey Bellemor – and no, that’s not a fake name Zoe gave me so she could get a free beer.

Corey is now the 5-time Beer Mile World Classic champion! He once again took the title at the race in Portugal (which I’m sure you were all livestreaming) at the end of July – and broke his own record at a 4:27 mile!

Considering Hicham El Guerrouj’s world record for the uh, “regular” mile at 3:43 was done without drinking 4 beers #amateur, Corey is making his Canadian brethren very proud. Especially as all 4 beers have to be at least 5% ABV (you can choose which one you want to drink).

Now, before you get any ideas about taking Corey on next year, know that the penalty for booting 🤮 during the race is having to run another lap.

For the record, Corey also holds the record for the non-alc beer mile as well – he knows where beer sales trends are going.

Slainté!

-Sean McNulty 

(you can always reach me here on LinkedIn)