Kirin Brewery Company, Limited

New Belgium Brewing’s portfolio is craft’s top share gainer through Q1, CEO Shaun Belongie shared recently. The Kirin-owned New Belgium craft portfolio, which includes New Belgium’s offerings (Voodoo Ranger, Fat Tire and more), and Bell’s Brewery (Two Hearted, Oberon and more) snagged share by growing volume 3.2% year-to-date.

A pair of new ready-to-drink (RTD) offerings are coming from New Belgium in 2026, including Kirin’s top-selling canned cocktail and a vodka cocktail with a “subtle nod” to the Voodoo Ranger franchise.

Beer is in the midst of “a fun crisis,” New Belgium Brewing CMO Rebecca Dye Yonushonis declared during the company’s distributor convention in Fort Collins last week.

After reaching nationwide distribution in 2023, Bell’s Brewery has refocused on its core Great Lakes markets. New Belgium CEO Shaun Belongie explained that the Michigan craft brand struggled in far away markets, leading the company to double down at home.

This summer is shaping up to be one of the most unpredictable seasons that Columbia Distributing CEO Chris Steffanci has ever experienced.

New Belgium CEO Shaun Belongie joins the Brewbound Podcast to discuss the comeback in Asheville, the company’s still-unfolding contingency plans and the road ahead.

New Belgium will take over production of Kirin Ichiban and Kirin Light in the U.S. when the Japanese lager brand’s contract brewing agreement with Anheuser-Busch InBev (A-B) expires later this year, New Belgium announced today. New Belgium is a subsidiary of Kirin-owned, Australian-based Lion.

CANarchy-owned Deep Ellum Brewing and Oskar Blues are now selling beer-to-go in Texas after a federal judge sided with the company in a legal dispute with the state’s regulatory agency.

Five months after considering a sale of as much as 20% of the company, India’s B9 Beverages is in the process of selling a minority stake in the New Delhi-based company for $30 million to Tokyo, Japan-headquartered Kirin Holdings, according to the Financial Times and Reuters.

Brewbound readers in 2019 gravitated to stories about major craft brewery mergers and acquisitions, hard seltzer launches and reformulations, lawsuits and distribution disputes and brewery closures. The announcement of the $300 million merger between Boston Beer Company and Dogfish Head set the stage for a busy year of M&A activity, as many craft brewers began to form partnerships to weather a more tumultuous competitive marketplace.

New Belgium Brewing Company’s employee owners have voted in favor of selling the company to Kirin-owned Lion Little World Beverages despite concerns over the Japanese beer giant’s business dealings in Myanmar.

Another member of the old guard of craft brewing sold today when Kirin-owned Lion Little World Beverages announced a “definitive agreement” to acquire 100% of New Belgium Brewing Company in an all cash transaction.

Australian craft brewery Little Creatures officially opened its doors, Friday, July 26, to its highly anticipated microbrewery and restaurant in San Francisco’s Mission Bay neighborhood.