• 🐶 Lagunitas' 2025 Playbook
• 🇺🇸 A-B's ‘American’ Push Comes to Super Bowl
• 🍻 Right Proper Pays It Forward
• 🫖 Boulevard Quirk Hard Tea
• 🍏 Hard Cider’s Gender Advantage

With a leadership team all well under 2 years on the job, it would be logical to view 2025 as a rebuilding year for Heineken-owned Lagunitas Brewing. 

But the Petaluma, CA-headquartered brewery took distributor and retailer feedback to heart in the past year-plus, which drove Lagunitas to develop a 2025 plan that’s consistent, focused and hinges on collaboration with its partners. 

Newly installed CEO Bernardo Spielmann addressed the brand’s distributors last week at the company’s annual DogPile summit armed with a tidbit of good news. In Q4 2025, Lagunitas hit its highest share of craft (4.51%) since before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Beer Institute (BA) data.

Spielmann said: “We are happy that we're setting up the basis to grow, and we're confident that we're on the right path for 2025 but we can't stop here. Lagunitas is not happy to just stay recovering a little bit of share. 

“We will reignite, and we'll go back to something that has made us very special, which is the essence of telling stories.”

Another positive storyline from 2024: Since refreshing packaging for its flagship IPA in June, the brand’s ROS has increased +4.20%, CMO Hannah Dray shared. The number drew approving chuckles from a crowd well-versed in Lagunitas’ cannabis-tinged lore. IPA 12 oz. can 6-packs have increased sales +18% since June, she added. 

Last year’s redesign was a course correction from a 2022 refresh, the brand’s first global reimagining of its branding that included the entire portfolio. 

In 2025, Lagunitas is tripling its media investment, to $6 million, the “vast majority” of which will be spent on "our legendary IPA, with a sprinkling of our innovation in between as well,” brand manager Molly Hagen said. All of Lagunitas’ spend will be on social media due to its “sheer scale,” improved targeting and the fact that 46% of Gen Z consumers say it influences their spending, Hagen added.

Lagunitas’ 2025 innovation slate includes four new products: Hazy IPA (5.5% ABV), Hazicus Maximus (9% ABV), Uncensored Punch (9% ABV) and Hazy IPNA (non-alcoholic). Each product’s go-to-market plan is targeted by format and channel.

Insiders can read more about the brewery’s go-to-market plan for each new product and 2024 year-end scan data.

Super Bowl LIX attendees will have a choice of “American” lagers – as opposed to “domestic” beers at the Caesars Superdome on Sunday. 

The switch follows Anheuser-Busch InBev U.S. CEO Brendan Whitworth’s call for “domestic” beers to be reclassified as “American” beers in a 600-word missive to distributors earlier this week, first reported by Beer Business Daily.

A-B shared images from the Superdome and positive feedback from its distributor and retailer network applauding the proposed change.

Total Wine & More CEO Troy Rice wrote to A-B: “We believe the term ‘American beer’ supports and represents the proud brewers across our great country better than the term ‘domestic beer. We look forward to making this shift at our stores over the coming months.”

Independent bev-alc journalist Dave Infante skewered the move in his Fingers newsletter, writing that it “stinks of desperation” from a company that lost the most share in dollars (-1.11 share points) and volume (-1.02 share points) in the category in 2024, according to market research firm Circana. 

Infante wrote: “Even if ABI could ‘unilaterally’ force the entire industry to start referring to domestic beer as American beer, it wouldn’t meaningfully affect neither the sales nor the stature of the segment, let alone Bud Light’s.”

Insiders can read more from Whitworth and Infante and examine A-B’s scan trends from 2024.

🏛️ Washington, D.C.-based Right Proper is supporting federal employees at the crosshairs of executive orders that may put them out of work with a pay-it-forward taproom promotion that lets customers pre-purchase an $8 draft beer for any federal worker.

Boulevard is the latest brewer to enter the hard tea fray with its Quirk seltzer brand.

Teased late last year, Quirk Hard Tea began hitting retail shelves in Kansas City earlier this week. Additionally Midwestern markets are expected to follow.

Here are the specs:

• 4% ABV;
• Four flavors: Lemonade Tea, Raspberry Tea, Peach Tea and Pomegranate Tea;
• Sold in a 12 oz. can variety 12-pack; 
• Lemonade is sold in single-flavor 12 oz. can 12-packs, 19.2 oz. singles and draft;
• Available year-round.

What’s life like for the Anheuser-Busch distributor in one of the country’s biggest party towns ahead of one of the beer industry’s biggest days? 

Ahead of Super Bowl LIX, Brandon Frederick, VP of sales; Greg Naquin, director of off-premise sales; and Kris Cutrell, director of on-premise sales walk through the preparations for the big game in New Orleans, the expectations placed on them, the biggest pain points and much more. 

Plus, the Brewbound team recaps the latest news, including why beer is expected to be the winner on Super Bowl Sunday, how many Dry January adherents stuck to their abstinence pledges and a first-hand report from Lagunitas’ annual Dog Pile distributor meeting.

This week’s game of Another Round or Tabbing Out tackles the slate of Super Bowl ads from Molson Coors and Anheuser-Busch, as well as Splitting the G copycats. 

Listen here or on your preferred podcasting platform. 

Most beer segments overindex with male consumers, but one segment is bucking the trend, according to NBWA chief economist and VP of analytics Lester Jones.

Hard cider consumers are split 50/50 men and women, giving the segment an edge over other beer offerings, Jones shared Thursday during Day One of CiderCon. 

Women could have the most sway when it comes to buying power, Jones added. Since late 2022, women have had a higher labor participation percentage than men, and women have consistently had a higher college enrollment rate. That educated workforce translates to higher wages, and more income to spend on bev-alc, according to Jones. 

Cider’s ability to connect with women consumers may also help keep more consumers in the beer category, instead of switching to ready-to-drink cocktails, spirits-based hard seltzers and other segments outside the category.