Welcome to Brewbound’s Inside Look at the Beer Business for the week that was … Saturday, May 4, 2024.

Well, $1 hot dog night at CITI FIELD was clearly a resounding success this week, although sadly it was still accompanied by $15 beer night.

Now, I’m sure your next question is who the hell is Seymour? Well the whole event was done in support of 97-year-old longtime METS fan and WWII vet, Seymour Weiner #realname.

#Funfact: Seymour was at the game where Jackie Robinson got his first hit – he was a DODGERS FAN in his, well, let’s just broadly call it his “youth,” but changed over to the METS like many DODGERS fans when the team bailed on NYC for LA.

The METS stepped up on Seymour’s behalf and even brought in an extra refrigerated truck just to hold all the weiners (that sound you hear is Jess chuckling in the background at that phrasing), and thus a new METS tradition was born, because they can’t seem to make one around winning games.

But hey, here’s to the METS finding a fan named Lou R. Beers (that I’m totally happy to pretend to be) so we can all get a night of beers priced at least in the single digits – let’s be realistic folks, it’s NYC.

AND: Come to the beach 🏖️ with BREWBOUND in December! I’m told on very good authority that it’s much better than going to Iowa – BREWBOUND Live is returning from Dec. 11 & 12 in Marina del Rey, CA for 2 days of insightful conversations and analysis, plus top notch industry networking opportunities. 

Meet 8ZERO5 blonde, FW’s first packaged effort in the space that’ll hit shelves after Labor Day in CA in the sixer can format.

FW has been working on the project for two years, and secretly tested it in FW taprooms under the name “Good Decisions,” a beer which (checking my UNTAPPD app …), yes, I have had!

“I’ve been trying to get us out of there for the better part of a year-and-a-half. 

We brought other breweries in [on a contract-brewing basis] to try to fill it up. It’s too big.”

- BALLAST POINT CEO Brendan Watters in an interview with SD Beer News on his decision to shut down production at its Miramar, CA, brewery and shift to contract brewing at the same facility, which will be taken over by an unnamed business.

BP will also keep their taproom location at the site, while they look to either build or acquire another brewing facility in the greater San Diego area.

SIERRA NEVADA

Brand Director – Chico, CA or Mills River, NC

MENAGERIE BEER COMPANY

Head Brewer – Beacon, NY

GREAT CENTRAL Brewing Co

Well, at least beer ordering is … as the NBWA’s BPI has now been above 50 for two months – in a row!🤯 April’s 62 for total beer is also the highest number in nearly three years (Dec. 2021).

As always, a score over 50 means distributors intend to order more of a given category in the month ahead, under 50 means less.

Although, save your “Craft boom!” balloons (the joke is supposed to take place when you pop it, but then you can’t read the words so it kinda defeats the purpose) – the category was still well in the basement at 36.

Meaning, yes, this is all pretty much driven by CONSTELLATION and other #bigbeer dominated styles.

But, let’s finish positive folks – all seven categories showed improvement over April 2023 👏.

Here are the Q1 '24 dollar sales #funfacts based on NIQ off-prem data through March 30, per Bump Williams Consulting:

• Total beer: -1.3%
• Craft sales: -0.3% (grocery and c-store were both about +1%)
• Imports: +6.8%
• FMB: +11.3%
• Non-alc: +32.5%

For share of beer sales, three categories saw increases:

• FMB: 9.6% (+1.1%)
• Craft: 11.8% (+0.1%)
• Imports: 23.7% (+1.8%)

Imports also beat domestic premiums in share of dollar sales for the four-week period ending April 20, according to NIQ data, 24.7% to 24%.

MOLSON COORS revenue was +10.1% to $2.6 billion, but Wall Street was not loving MC’s use of the word “cautious” on the industry’s outlook given April numbers thus far, and thus sending the stock down about -10% after the Q1 report.

But here are your quite good Q1 North American business numbers:

• Shipments (sales to wholesalers): +7.5%
• Depletions (sales to retailers): +5.3% 
• Net Sales: +10.6% to $2.1 billion
• Net Income (profit, pre-tax): +37% to $321 million

This week’s pod features the first interviews from CBC last month, and a two-fer episode to kick things off:

• Breeze Galindo, the director of operations on the Michael James Jackson Foundation for Brewing and Distilling
• WA’s ICICLE Brewing founder Pam Brulotte

PLUS: The BREWBOUND trio share all of their takeaways from day 2 at CBC, including Bart Watson’s big presentation.

Listen Here!

• BEAM SUNTORY will now be known as SUNTORY GLOBAL SPIRITS, so be sure to update your filofaxes. 
• WA brewery NO-LI is suing TILRAY over their new REDHOOK Big Juicy Ballard beer, claiming trademark infringement, and pointing out that they had the name back in 2017.
• The BA released their state-by-state data for 2023, looking at brewery counts, production and economic impact.
• NOLA-based brewery URBAN SOUTH closed its Houston, TX taproom outpost.

This week’s beer goes out to science, yo! The nerds, err I mean researchers in a new study published in the scientific journal Matter (I borrowed Zoe’s copy) discovered that beer tastes best when served cold. 

Clearly this study did not take place in the U.K. I’m also pretty sure we didn’t need a beer scientist to tell us that.

But apparently it has to do with the shape of how the molecular chains of water and ethanol form at different temperatures. Or at least that’s what it said on Justin’s test when I copied off of his 🤫.

So – what I take away here is that science is telling me to go have a cold beer, and you know I always listen to science. Now, let’s see what Justin’s garage fridge has for me today … 

Slainté!  

-Sean McNulty