Welcome to Brewbound’s Inside Look at the Beer Business for the week that was … Saturday, October 25, 2025.

Yeah, I gotta say athletes are really letting down their image in 2025. First, it was baseball players leaving the complimentary beer fridges in the locker room mostly untouched – now the NBA fellas are starting … wine clubs!

Indeed, it seems that during the Covid “bubble season," the fellas got to drinking the finest wine that their DISNEY resort accommodations had to offer after games – and the ritual has continued into 2025 in the form of doing wine bottle swaps after games and as friendly wagers. 

Just don’t ask how Terry Rozier got the Château Lafite Rothschild unless you want the feds at your door.

So, beer – maybe it’s time we take our wares over to the NHL, as I’m sure the NFL players are only drinking Dom after games at this point. 

$1 billion and 52 million cases

– Beer’s sales (-2.9%) and volume (-4.5%) losses in 2025 in the first 9 months of the year through October 5 in CIRCANA off-premise data.

• MC: -$356M
• A-B: -$266M
• HEINEKEN & BOSTON BEER: Each about -$110M
• CONSTELLATION: -$80M

AND: MC is laying off about 400 folks in its Americas business by the end of the year, or about 9% of the workforce – this includes “hundreds” of open roles that are being eliminated. 

Craft actually saw some improvement in its Q3 numbers.

I mean, they’re still not positive (no matter how many sips of Utopias you had before reading this), but here are the comps for the L12W ending October 5 in CIRCANA off-prem data vs. the YTD trends:

• Q3 Dollar sales: -3.9% YoY (vs. -4.8% YTD)
• Q3 Volume: -5.6% YoY (vs. -6.1% YTD)

ALTHOUGH: Those are still worse than L12W total beer trends: -2.5% in dollar sales and -4.2% in volume.

MAUI is leaning into what’s working, and dialing in focus at the company as its 26-state footprint will be cut in half in 2026.

As a result, MAUI will be discontinuing its mainland co-manufacturing arrangement by year end. Essentially – it’s time to pour more resources into key states (CA, OR, WA and NV) where the brand has been seeing success instead of unsuccessfully servicing many states in the continental U.S.

BREWERY OMMEGANG 

General Manager, Tap House – Cooperstown, NY

LAMPLIGHTER BREWING CO

Director of Operations – Cambridge, MA

GELOSO BEVERAGE GROUP

 “Now in this environment we’re in, we’re realizing we have to change the playbook.”

Yeah, sorry folks – the moose outside shoulda toldja, but not much new here to report in BOSTON BEER’s trends:

• Shipments (sales to wholesalers): -13.7%
• Depletions (sales to retailers): -3%

HEINEKEN … had similar news

Pretty similar Q3 trends at the Dutch brewer as well, with weakness in the U.S. and Brazil cited as drags on business.

Numbers from the Americas in Q3:

• Net revenue: -5.5% (-2.3% YTD)
• Beer volume: -7.4% (-3.3% YTD)

Both of those numbers were far worse (into the double digits) in the U.S. alone.

• DUVEL USA is aiming to get its share of Belgian imported beer up to 15% in 2026 and achieve growth for both the DUVEL and LA CHOUFFE brands.
• SAPPORO is launching 3 new SKUs in 2026 in its bid for more growth stateside, where it is already the biggest Asian import brand (73.5% dollar share) – SAPPORO Premium NA, a reformulated SAPPORO Premium Light and 19.2 oz. single-serve cans of SAPPORO Premium. 
• KIRIN is looking to offload its FOUR ROSES whiskey business if ya got about $1B on hand – or if you will by next month when KIRIN is expecting bids to come in. Put me in as a maybe – I gotta talk to Justin about my 2026 pay rates.
• RHINEGEIST is entering the THC beverage space with Fuzzy Bones … just as the governor’s temporary ban of such products was blocked, and state legislators now rush to build out and pass a new framework for regulation and taxation.
• IL’s MAPLEWOOD is hermit crabbing into its second location, taking over the TWO HOUND RED Brewing space in Glen Ellyn – with plans to open a MAPLEWOOD taproom in the space this spring and thus adding 1,500 BBL a year of capacity for the brewery.
• GREAT DIVIDE is opening a new taproom in Denver’s RiNo neighborhood, taking over the former space of fellow WILDING BRANDS member STEM CIDERS. 

We’re less than 2 months out from BREWBOUND LIVE – time to get those tickets for December! Justin is now up to being out in the sun for 5 minutes a day to work up his base tan, so be sure to compliment him during his lobby autograph signing session next to the valet stand.

The team is also bringing back the one-on-one meetings with retailers and distributors once again (including WHOLE FOODS, BREAKTHRU, TOP TEN LIQUORS, SUNSET, EXTRA MILE and HEIMARK so far) and assembling a great round of speakers already, with a lot more to come!

• Sophia D’Angelo, founder and CEO, Boston Experiential Group;
• Kaleigh Theriault, director of bev-alc thought leadership, NIQ;
• Andrew Hummel, director bev-alc vertical, CGA;
• Rosalie Kennedy, director of marketing, Athletic Brewing;
• Sam Hendler, co-founder and CEO, Hendler Family Brewing Company;
• Bourcard Nesin, analyst – beverages, Rabobank;
• Jon Halper, owner and CEO, Top Ten Liquors;
• Nick Firestone, CEO, Firestone Walker;
• Leah Wong Ashburn, owner and CEO, Highland Brewing;
• Kevin George, CMO, Garage Beer;
• Van Sharma, co-founder, Rupee Beer;
• Whitney Stevenson, president, JuneShine.

SO: Book your hotel room and tickets here.

THREES head brewer Josh Penny joins the pod this week to dive into the differences he’s noticed in adjusting to the NYC beer scene after moving cross-country from his career at HIGHLAND PARK in L.A. about a year ago.

THEN: Frankly, the BREWBOUND crew can’t hang like they used to … as they’re still hurting a week after the GABF/NBWA one-two punch combo. But they somehow find the gumption to dive into:

• Molson Coors’ latest corporate restructuring 
• That “ornery” NY Times op-ed from a writer who went all Festivus on craft beer – he has a lot of problems with you people, and he really wanted you to know about them.
• Zoe explaining the issues with beer prices being too damn high!
• Justin’s sounds of defeatism at being surrounded by BUSCH LIGHT in Iowa
• Jess helping ol’ man Justin remember his big life moments while giving advice about making spaghetti like a true Jersey Italian 🤌, and more.

LISTEN HERE! Or just search “Brewbound” on your podcast listening platform of choice. And leave a review and rating, would ya? (Good ones only, plz)

This week’s beer is my favorite kind of beer – two beers!

The first goes out to SAM ADAMS’ Utopias for really topping itself this year.

No, it didn’t cause more people to pass out early at GABF this year (well, at least not officially), although as it hit the 30% ABV mark for the first time ever – that’s certainly within the realm of possibility. Unfortunately, as the person we entrusted to monitor such things at GABF also had a Utopias – we’ll never know. Nice work, Zoe. 😏 

So yes, plenty of “this beer is banned in 15 states” free press pieces abounded once again for the brewery with the beer’s release, and given 2025 craft beer trends – I look forward to seeing it in 19.2s at my corner bodega shortly.

THEN: Beer number two goes out to this guy ☝️ for finally making it to the big time … nice to see Pliny the Elder finally catching a break! A congrats to Vinny on the big night – hopefully Wheel of Fortune is in your future.

Slainté!

-Sean McNulty