Beer Industry News, Insights, Jobs, & Events

There were many kinds of party drinks before 2010, but we’d bet none of them came in colorful plastic orb-shaped containers. BuzzBallz, the Sazerac-owned ready-to-drink (RTD) party prop, doesn’t just stand out for its spherical shape, but for what it represents about how people are drinking these days: with entertaining, high-ABV, convenient formats.

The decade-long consent decree that allowed Anheuser-Busch InBev’s (A-B) MegaBrew merger with SABMiller to go forward expired in July, removing guardrails that had been placed on the world’s largest beer manufacturer by the Department of Justice to ensure competition in the marketplace. Chris Jones, managing director of Central Market Strategies, joins this week’s Brewbound Podcast to explore what competition looks like in a post-consent decree beer industry.

Check out news items initially reported in the Brewbound Insider Newsletter, including headlines from Asahi, Monster, Iron Hill and more.

The price of a drink at a bar or restaurant has gotten more expensive more quickly than most other things, according to the latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

If there’s ever a good place to make a pitch that a drinks brand is about hedonism, it would be at Tales of The Cocktail, the U.S. bar industry’s biggest event, which took place in New Orleans last month. What’s surprising is that the pitch came from a non-alc brand.

Will Dead Guy rise from the grave? Bidding for Rogue Ales & Spirits’ intellectual property is underway through August 21.

Another craft platform is taking shape in Minnesota. Minneapolis-headquartered Fulton Brewing has struck a deal to acquire the brands and distribution rights to Bemidji Brewing, a 14-year-old craft brewery based in the downtown district of the city that bears its name.

KEG 1 River City (K1RC) has signed a letter of intent (LOI) to acquire Republic National Distributing Company’s (RNDC) Kentucky assets, the companies announced today. The deal would add roughly 2 million cases annually to K1RC’s portfolio. The deal follows news late last week that Breakthru Beverage Group was pulling out of its deals for RNDC’s Kentucky and Indiana operations.

A year after extending its partnership with England’s Arsenal Football Club, the dedicated non-alcoholic (NA) beer maker has inked a multi-year agreement to become a “Proud Non-Alcoholic Beer Partner” of MetLife Stadium and the NFL’s New York Giants and New York Jets.

Lawson’s Finest Liquids started exploring the creation of a non-alcoholic (NA) beer five years ago, as the boom of craft NAs kicked off in response to consumers’ increased interest in bev-alc moderation following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Losses in beer and wine continued to drag overall beverage-alcohol sales in the latest weekly report from market research firm Circana. Total bev-alc off-premise dollar sales declined 2.2% year-over-year (YoY), to $1.452 billion in Circana-tracked off-premise channels (total U.S. multi-outlet plus convenience) in the week ending August 2.

Congress is getting more serious about finding a regulatory solution for the hemp beverage market, with two U.S. representatives filing a new bill today aimed at establishing a proper framework to allow brands to stay legal.

Regional and local craft beer may be on the chopping block for many distributors in the next year, according to the latest survey from Tamarron Consulting. Tamarron’s annual Brewer Partnership Compass (BPC) – a comprehensive survey of 170 wholesalers about their relationships with leading suppliers and plans for the coming year – revealed that 57.6% of respondents plan to “de-emphasize and/or reduce SKUs” of regional craft beer.

“Occasions, not cases, is the story for 2026,” according to Lester Jones, VP of analytics and chief economist of the National Beer Wholesalers Association.