• 🆕 Sierra Nevada 2025 Innovation
• 🚛 A-B to Sell Distro Branches in MA & OH
• 📉 Oregon Hop Crop -18% in 2023
• 🎙️ NIQ on Bev-Alc at Halftime 2024
  
• 🏝️ Zoe’s Bahamian Beer Haul

While many annual business plans over the next couple months will likely include fourth-category innovations, Sierra Nevada is focused on continuing to innovate with “beer-flavored beer.”

Sierra Nevada leadership shared their plans with wholesalers Wednesday at its brewery in Mills River, North Carolina. The company’s top three priorities for 2025 include continuing the growth of Hazy Little Thing, revitalizing Pale Ale and strengthening the company’s non-alcoholic portfolio.

Look out for further coverage of the event, including Sierra Nevada’s 2025 goals and why the company still believes in investing in craft. 

🛹 Little Thing Brand Family Extensions

Hazy Little Thing continues to lead growth for Sierra Nevada, and will remain a top priority for the company in 2025 (more on that in future coverage). However, Sierra Nevada does not want to limit its hazy offerings, and believes in the style’s ability to bring in more consumers, VP of marketing Lesley Albright told wholesaler partners. 

Albright said: “While this category often seems a little old news to us in the industry – of course there are hazies everywhere – we are really confident, and we hear from consumers that there's still a lot of people coming into this style, a lot of people still trying it, and it has a large effect on our entire portfolio.”

A new limited hazy offering will join Sierra Nevada’s Little Thing brand family in 2025: Rad Little Thing. 

The 7% ABV West Coast IPA combines East Coast haze with West Coast flavor and style. A draft of the 6-pack’s packaging shared at the meeting featured bright colors and the image of a skateboarder in action – something Sierra Nevada plans to lean into when promoting the brand, including potential partnerships with athletes. 

Rad Little Thing will be a part of Sierra Nevada hazy rotator series, available in 12 oz. can 6-packs, joining other limited offerings Juicy Little Thing, Tropical Little Thing, Dank Little Thing, Cosmic Little Thing and Cool Little Thing.

Beverage makers have new pressure to decarbonize their supply chain, requiring innovation. To lower costs and decarbonize supply, tea, coffee, lemonade, soft drink, and alcoholic beverage makers have switched to Sugaright’s liquid cane sugar. Learn more about our sugar & new fermentability study. Learn more

Two New Non-Alc Styles and a Variety Pack

Sierra Nevada’s Trail Pass non-alcoholic (NA) beer brand has been “a star” for the company in 2024, and the company plans to be in the NA segment “for the long haul,” Albright said. 

The NA line launched in January with two offerings: IPA and Golden. Sierra Nevada is now the No. 4 craft NA brand in NIQ-tracked off-premise channels year-to-date (YTD), and IPA and Golden are the No. 2 NAs in their respective styles, according to Albright. 

While the NA segment is dominated by single-flavor 12-packs, Sierra Nevada sees “a real big opportunity” for the segment with variety packs.

To capitalize, Sierra Nevada has created a four-flavor non-alc variety 12-pack, with plans to become “the first brand to nationally distribute [a] non-alc variety pack.” Non-Alc Variety Pack features the two existing NA beer offerings, as well as a Hazy IPA and Brewveza Mexican-style blonde ale. 

Sierra Nevada began testing the variety pack in a handful of markets this year, and will expand into an additional 14 states this fall, with further expansion possible in 2025. 

Additionally, Trail Pass Hazy IPA will be available in its own 6-pack, as well as possible single-serve packages, including 16 and 19.2 oz. 

Insiders can read more here, including Sierra Nevada’s craft lager play and a new Q1 seasonal.

Anheuser-Busch InBev (A-B) has reached agreements to sell wholly owned distributor branches in Massachusetts and Ohio to independent A-B distributors in each state, the company announced today.

Quality Beverage will acquire the Boston, Massachusetts-based branch, and Columbus Distributing will acquire the Canton, Ohio-based branch, according to a press release.

A-B’s wholly owned distributors have been a way for the company to “test and learn,” A-B U.S. chief sales officer Simon Wuestenberg said in the release.

Wuestenberg said: “We continuously assess our operational footprint to ensure our entire system is set up for long-term success, and the transition of these operations will ensure that Anheuser-Busch and its network of independent distributors will continue to drive the growth of our iconic portfolio of brands while providing world-class service to our retail customers across Ohio and Massachusetts.”

Taunton, Massachusetts-headquartered Quality Beverage itself was acquired by wine and spirits distributor Martignetti Companies in a deal that closed in early 2024 after the settlement of a lawsuit between Quality and Constellation Brands, which did not want its brands to remain with Quality after the sale.

As of January 2022, A-B’s wholly owned network sold about 7% of its volume, under its 10% cap, A-B U.S. CEO Brendan Whitworth shared during Beer Business Daily’s Beer Industry Summit.  

Insiders can read more about A-B’s deal activity within its wholly owned network, both in selling and acquiring.

Oregon hop farmers are feeling the trickle down effect of slowing craft beer sales. 

The Oregon Beverage Alliance shared that the state’s hop crop declined -18% year-over-year (YoY) in 2023, mirroring national hop acreage declines of -18%, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Oregon is the third largest hop producing state, with 5,500 acres in 2023, down from more than 7,000 acres the prior year. Washington and Idaho were the only states to rank higher. 

Erica Lorentz, a fourth generation hop farmer at Sodbuster Farms, said in the release: “It’s been tough to say the least with the Oregon hop harvest down -12% last year and now -18% this year. Sometimes it’s simply a variety of hop going out of style, but now all hops are down because of declining beer sales.”

Oregon’s beverage-alcohol industry butting heads with state lawmakers over proposed tax increases on alcoholic beverages. Oregon’s Task Force on Alcohol Pricing and Addiction Services is expected to vote on recommendations in the next month and report to the governor by September 15.

Beverage-alcohol’s growing “fourth category” of flavor-first offerings are quickly becoming a “mega category,” NIQ VP of alcohol industry thought leadership Jon Berg shared on the latest edition of the Brewbound Podcast. 

Berg explains how the collective of ready-to-drink offerings such as flavored malt beverages, canned cocktails, hard seltzers and other flavor-forward offerings have shifted the fortunes of bev-alc for the year, while the best case scenario for beer, wine and spirits is likely a flat year. He also dishes on the tension between value and volume, slumping craft sales, channel outlooks and brand life cycles.

Plus, Zoe is back with a beer report from the Bahamas. She and Justin discuss their travel schedules, the decline in attendance for this year’s Craft Brewers Conference and Monster’s bev-alc struggles. 

Listen here or on your preferred podcast platform. 

At Brewbound Live in Marina del Rey on December 11 + 12, beer and beverage-alcohol companies can participate in retailer One-to-One meetings with ExtraMile Convenience. The buyer will be available for private, pre-scheduled meetings, and brands will be selected at the retailer’s discretion.

ExtraMile Convenience is a successful, industry-recognized c-store brand with more than 1,000 franchised convenience stores in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Alabama, and Mississippi. The growing ExtraMile network leverages experience and efficiency of scale to deliver “extra” value.

Meet with Michelle Abdollah, the Category Manager of Alcoholic Beverages, during Brewbound Live. Michelle is a seasoned retail expert with over 15 years of experience in merchandising and operations. With a proven track record of driving growth and profitability, Michelle has honed her skills through various leadership roles at 7-Eleven and Target. Her expertise has earned her recognition as one of the Top Women In Convenience by Convenience Store News in 2024.

Beer and beverage-alcohol professionals attending Brewbound Live can also meet with Whole Foods beer category buyers, with additional retailers to be added soon!

You must be registered for Brewbound Live to be considered for a retailer meeting. Once you register for the event, you will receive an email with instructions for signing up.

Register for Brewbound Live 2024.

I (Zoe) am back from a glorious vacation in the Bahamas. Naturally, I couldn’t completely keep beer off my mind.

We tried to get our hands on every Bahamian beer available on Cat Island, including:

• Kalik (5% ABV);
• Kalik Light (4.5% ABV);
• Kalik Platinum (6% ABV);
• Kalik Gold (7% ABV);
• Kalik Radler: Mango, Guava and Cranberry (2% ABV);
• Bush Crack (5.9% ABV);
• Guinness Foreign Extra (7.5% ABV).

I’ll respectfully decline to share how many Kaliks we went through throughout the trip, but I was very happy to have a 2% offering in the mix. 

Listen to the latest episode of the Brewbound Podcast to hear details, including what the heck a Bush Crack is.