Welcome to Brewbound’s Inside Look at the Beer Business for the week that was … Saturday, June 1, 2024.

Everyone, meet MAS+! No, it’s not a new streaming service that we don’t need . . . rather, it’s a new “hydration product” that we don’t need. 

AND: Come to the beach 🏖️ with BREWBOUND in mid-December! (wait, that’s the same time of year Justin said I should come to Iowa! 🤔) 

BREWBOUND Live is returning to Marina del Rey, CA, on Dec. 11 & 12 for 2 days of insightful conversations and analysis, plus top-notch industry networking opportunities. 

PLUS: Beer and beverage-alcohol brands can participate in retailer one-to-ones. Leaders from WHOLE FOODS and other businesses will be available for private, pre-scheduled meetings. Brands will be selected at each retailer’s discretion. REGISTER HERE.

The founder of CHOBANI has emerged as the new owner of ANCHOR. Zoe swears she had that on her 2024 beerbiz bingo card, but I’m still waiting for proof.

But yes, billionaire Hamdi Ulukaya has purchased the ANCHOR BREWING CO, and will keep the brand and brewing going at its San Francisco location – although not too many details yet. 

No price was disclosed, but the real estate had been listed for around $40 million previously.

CANARCHY … I mean MONSTER BREWING COMPANY is pulling the plug on DEEP ELLUM’s Dallas taproom and brewery after 12 years, and will now make and distribute the beer from other breweries in the consortium. 25 people are out of a job as a result.

This follows the closing of the OSKAR BLUES outpost in Austin last November, and of course, the end of CIGAR CITY’s brewing in Tampa just 2 months ago, which MONSTER turned into a R&D facility, brewing CIGAR CITY beer in North Carolina, and resulting in 12 layoffs.

Don’t worry, I’m sure things are going great.

ALSO: NYC’s GUN HILL BREWING closed its doors in the Bronx after about a decade (#10YearLeaseHike?). The brand will live on as part of a deal to make the beer in NYC’s hottest new brewing hub – far Upstate New York. 

VOSBURGH BREWING in Elizaville, NY, founded by GUN HILL co-founder Kieran Farrel in 2015, will produce the beer for distro and to serve in the VOSBURGH taproom. 

THEN: Milwaukee’s LAKEFRONT BREWING plans to acquire Kenosha’s PUBLIC CRAFT BREWING Co. after PUBLIC filed for bankruptcy, and will continue operations at PUBLIC as is, with no layoffs involved.

Zoe’s got a lot more numbers for ya … starting with 38% of regional breweries outside the Top 50 on the list (47 out of 123) posting production gains in 2023, down from 45% last year. 

18% were flat and 44% made less beer. As always, regional craft breweries make more than 15k BBL a year.

They accounted for 65.7% of all BA-defined craft beer volume in 2023.

Just sharing a little market report from my Memorial Day Saturday walk through GenZ central in NYC that is Sheep Meadow in Central Park.

If you’re wondering why hard seltzer numbers (TRULY in particular) keep being so terrible … and yet WHITE CLAW seems to be holding relatively steady – it’s because the generation that came of LDA when it was popular is still drinking it! 

WHITE CLAW 12-packs were by far the most popular beverage I saw, with a few TRULYs and TWISTED TEAs in much smaller numbers (and one TOPO CHICO sighting).

Beer wise – not a BUD LIGHT or MICH ULTRA in sight, but a nice showing of MILLER LITE 12-packs, and a little bit of MODELO.

For craft, there was more than I expected, with SIERRA’s Hazy lineup taking the title along with MONTAUK (a popular go to for younger demos in NYC).

NODA BREWING CO

Taproom General Manager – Charlotte, NC

THE BREWTORIUM

Brewery Ops Manager – Austin, TX

SARENE CRAFT BEER DISTRIBUTORS

🧐 LEFT A JOB

CREATURE COMFORTS CEO Chris Herron is stepping down from the company, a role he’s been in since the brewery’s founding in 2014. Co-founder Adam Beauchamp is stepping into the role, and Chris will stay on in an advisory role in the transition – no new destination for Chris was noted. 

🤝 NEW JOB

DIAGEO BEER CO. is changing presidents in September  – Rodney Williams will leave after nearly 2 years in the role, and SVP of marketing Laura Merritt will move into the role.

👋 RETIRING

The NBWA’s BPI keeps cooking this year 🥳, as May hit 63 … matching April’s number, and +11 from May last year.

Every category was flat or up – except for Craft, ahem, which was -7 points to 32. Oh and Imports! Look at that. I hope they’re OK with a … 72.

But let’s finish positively here of course: At-risk inventory was at 47, below 50 again, and well below last May’s 61.

OK, here’s what we got, according to data in the latest New Brewer.

MOLSON COORS: 2.27 million BBL (-10% YoY)

• BLUE MOON: 1.6 million BBL (-9%)
• LEINENKUGEL’S: 475k BBL (-10%, now less than half the size as it was in 2015)
• TERRAPIN: 80k BBL (-11%)
• HOP VALLEY: 75k BBL (-21%)
• REVOLVER: 28k BBL (-5%)
• ATWATER: 15k BBL (-3%)

A-B: 1.85 million BBL (total YoY comp is off due to sales of brands to TILRAY)

• GOOSE ISLAND: 525k BBL (+6% YoY, first time over 500k since 2019)
• KONA & other CBA brands: 380k BBL (+23%, note: does not include KONA production in HI, which was divested in the CBA deal, or brands sold in 2023)
• ELYSIAN: 280k BBL (-7%)
• GOLDEN ROAD: 195k (-9%)
• KARBACH: 135k BBL (-13%)
• FOUR PEAKS: 130k BBL (-7%)
• WICKED WEED: 120k BBL (+4%)
• DEVIL’S BACKBONE: 65k BBL (-13%)
• PLATFORM: 15k BBL (-25%)

NBB: 1.85 million BBL (just 200 BBL behind A-B)

• NEW BELGIUM: 1.38 million BBL (+12% YoY)
• BELL’S: 467k BBL (+5%)

OTHERS:

• LAGUNITAS: 765k BBL (-11% YoY)
• FOUNDERS: 409k BBL (-10%, and -183k BBL since 2020)
• STONE: 320k BBL (-6%)
• FUNKY BUDDHA: 23k (-38%)
• ANCHOR: 15k BBL
• FOUR CORNERS: 9.4k BBL (-6%)
• MAGIC HAT: 9k BBL (-42%)

This week’s featured interview is:

• BREWJERIA co-founder Agustin Ruelas and NORWALK BREW HOUSE founder Ray Ricky Rivera, who discuss Los Farmworkers, the fifth iteration of a collaboration series that benefits nonprofits supporting migrant workers.

PLUS: Justin and Zoe are joined by a guy who definitely sounds like he’s one of those Jersey people 🙄 . . . oh wait, that’s me! 🙋

Yes, the gang was kind enough to invite me on the pod this week to talk all about:

• The 2023 BA production Top 50
• GABF changes
• What’s up with LAGUNITAS 
• Why it’s totally not creepy for me to walk around a park, staring at what’s in the hands of NYC’s twentysomethings as summer starts. Not sure Zoe was buying it.

• PROVI’s lawsuit against SOUTHERN GLAZER and RNDC got the nod to go forward, as their moves to dismiss the claims were denied by a judge.
• WALMART is selling cases of MODELO at a $24 price point in over 40 states, well below the beer’s $36 a case average in CIRCANA data at other outlets, according to Beer Marketer’s Insights.
• GABF changes this year: Just three sessions (no more Saturday night session), and breweries can pour RTD cocktails that they make. The BA is expecting about 40k attendees this year across Thurs & Fri night, and Saturday afternoon sessions. Other previews about experiential add-ons are in the link.
• Former CIGAR CITY brewmaster Wayne Wambles is launching his own new 4BBL brewery in Brevard, NC, called GRIFFON & SPHYNX (named after his dogs and cat), which will operate out of the UPCOUNTRY Brewing space, which Wayne bought and will continue to run as well.

This week’s beer is a … very confused beer, going out to MOLSON COORS – along with an Italian gesture that Justin says I can’t use in this publication.

MC apparently saw the great response that STELLA got from moving U.S. market distro production from Belgium to places like Newark, NJ, and said hold my birra.

Thus, the crisp taste and dearly held tradition of Italian pilsner that is PERONI, will soon be coming to U.S. shelves from uh, Albany, GA. Southern-brewed PERONI will start showing up in kegs in September, and in bottles and cans in 2025 (anyone know how you say “ya’ll” in Italian? 🤔). 

Although – let’s actually give the beer this week to PERONI 0.0, which is keeping its production in the motherland of Italy. Always nice to see NA beer keeping it vero 🤌 (Justin said it was OK to use that one).

Slainté!  

-Sean McNulty