An Online Resource Serving The Beer Industry
Welcome to ProBrewer, a resource serving all trades of the brewing industry. Over a quarter century ago ProBrewer went online to serve the brewing industry. That remains our sole mission, purpose and focus. It’s our “Why.” Our mantra is “for the greater good of beer.” Every feature, action and decision is filtered through this ethos. We’d love your feedback. Within the pages of ProBrewer.com, you will find numerous tools and materials to assist you in your endeavors within the beer business, from the technical side of brewing to sales and distribution – and everything in between. ProBrewer is dedicated to empowering the specialty beer segment through the dissemination of comprehensive, current and relevant information.
The pandemic has hit the hospitality business especially hard, with many independent, small “mom and pop” on-premise restaurants forcing to close permanently. But the COVID-19 crisis has also had a big impact on large restaurant chains, with many chains filing for bankruptcy protection.
Here is a list from QSR Magazine of 16 restaurant chains that have turned to federal court proceedings to try and stay afloat.
New Belgium Brewing will have a presence in California. The Fort Collins, Colorado brewery, will be taking over the massive new space that Australian brewer Little Creatures recently opened in San Francisco, as reported in SF Eater.
Both breweries are owned by the same parent company, Little World Beverages which is the global beer division of Kirin Group. New Belgium was acquired last November by Little World.
In collaboration with the American Brewers Guild, the Falconer Foundation is offering a full-tuition scholarship to the Guild’s Intensive Brewing Science & Engineering program, a 22-week distance education program with a final week of residential instruction. The course is designed for brewers and homebrewers who lack formal training in brewing science and covers all the fundamentals of beer production and quality assurance. The course will run from January 17, 2021 through June 25, 2021 with the final week of onsite instruction in Middlebury, Vermont. The full application must be received no later than November 11, 2020.
The scholarship is open to professional brewers and homebrewers from the states of Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Hawaii and California’s northern geographic region (San Francisco/Monterey Bay areas and north).
Full details and scholarship applications are available at www.abgbrew.com.
The latest read on Nielsen data as described in Buzzfeed shows that hard seltzer now accounts for 10% of all beer sales. Three of the top five growth beer brands are in the hard seltzer category (White Claw Assorted, Truly Lemonade and Bud Light Seltzer).
A new webinar series to help craft beverage companies adapt to online sales in the COVID-19 era has been announced.
The first webinar in the series, “How to Sell and Ship Beer Online” will occur tomorrow, Thursday, September 24th, at 2 PM EST.
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The hard seltzer category was dominated by two brands during the first 24 months of its explosive growth. Others have jumped in as the growth shows no signs of slowing. Craft brewers have joined the partly as have all of the major-brand brewers. But you know its “a thing” when the non-alcoholic beverage behemoth Coca-Cola enters a category.
Coca-Cola has announced plans to release its first hard seltzer in the U.S. under their Topo Chico brand in the first half of 2021.
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The Beer Institute, the Brewers Association, the National Beer Wholesalers Association and the American Beverage Licensees released a report today from a leading economic firm showing more than 651,000 jobs supported by the U.S. beer industry will be lost by the end of the year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. These job losses include more than 3,600 brewing jobs, 1,800 distributing jobs and 400,000 retail-related jobs.
The report forecasts the COVID-19 pandemic will result in retail beer sales declining by more than $22 billion.
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It’s yet another example of how delicate naming a beer can be. Scottish and US brewer Brewdog has may need to stop using the name of one of their best-selling beers, a grapefruit and blood orange IPA called ‘Elvis Juice’ after losing a trademark appeal against Elvis Presley Enterprises (EPE), the company that manages the estate of the late singer.
Details in The Drinks Business here.
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Do you know all the ins and outs of applying for federal label approval? If not, the TTB is offering a free COLAs Online Workshop on September 29, at 1 p.m. ET, to learn how to register for and use TTB’s online alcohol label approval system. For more details and registering, go here.
Discuss other TTB issues with fellow brewers Here
The National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA) announced that it will host its 83rd Annual Convention and Product Showcase virtually, October 5-6, 2020.
NBWA will welcome CEOs of some of the world’s most recognized brands, including Michel Doukeris, CEO of Anheuser-Busch, and Mark Brown, President and CEO of Sazerac Company, Inc., who will discuss the current state of the beverage alcohol industry.
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The Brewers Association is now accepting proposals for educational seminars for the 2021 Craft Brewers Conference, scheduled to take place in San Diego, California on Monday, March 29 through Thursday, April 1 – if it is allowed to take place due to COVID-19 restrictions.
The CBC 2021 Seminar Subcommittee has curated a list of suggested topics that they would like to see covered at this year’s event. Interested speakers are encouraged to read the full list of suggested topics, as well as the proposal submission guidelines before filling out the proposal application in order to have the best chance of being selected.
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Would you buy a brewery/restaurant during a pandemic? Southern Pacific Brewing, an 8,500-square-foot restaurant, bar, and brewery in San Francisco is for sale.
“People’s lives have changed,” owner Chris Lawrence told Eater SF, “and it’s time to pass the torch of this great, successful business … although the pandemic has most people holding onto their pocketbooks, we feel it is a great opportunity.”
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Not long ago, in a distant world we knew as pre-pandemic, breweries were often packed with customers, people waited in long lines to buy the latest “one-off” special release and many breweries were contemplating how to expand to meet demand.
And then COVID-19 arrived.
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The most recent Nielsen CGA on-premise report shows that trends continue to slowly move in the right direction, with week-on-week velocity growing +2% September 5 vs August 29 across the U.S.
The report gathers on-premise sales data from Illinois, New York, Texas, Florida and California. New York, California, Texas and Florida have all seen single digit week-on-week growth, with Illinois velocity flat. On average, sales have increased +240% in the week of September 5, 2020 vs March 28 when the on-premise shutdown commenced.
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Molson Coors Beverage Company and D.G. Yuengling & Son Inc. have formed a joint venture to oversee and execute the westward expansion of Yuengling beer into states beyond its existing 22-state footprint and New England, the two companies said today.
The partnership will bring beers from America’s Oldest Brewery to millions more drinkers in 25 states outside its mostly East Coast distribution territory. Brands like Yuengling Traditional Lager, Black & Tan and Flight are expected to reach into new markets in the second half of 2021.
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Boston Beer will release its first non-alcoholic beer, Just the Haze, a hazy IPA. The release is slated for early 2021.
The beer, which has 0.5% ABV, will enter an increasingly crowded new market but one which seems to have a growing appeal. Boston Beer said it has been developing the beer for two years, trying to zero in on an IPA with flavor and aroma but without the alcohol.
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As restaurants and bars resume operations in some areas of the United States, CDC has offered considerations for ways in which operators can protect employees, customers, and communities and slow the spread of COVID-19. Restaurants and bars can determine, in collaboration with state and local health officials, whether and how to implement these considerations, making adjustments to meet the needs and circumstances of the local community. Implementation should be guided by what is feasible, practical, acceptable, and tailored to the needs of each community. These considerations are meant to supplement—not replace—any state, local, territorial, or tribal health and safety laws, rules, and regulations with which businesses must comply.
See the CDC guidelines here.
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When the TTB has a reminder, it’s a good idea to listen. In their latest newsletter, the TTB reminds brewers that regulations do not require a brewer to obtain a certificate of label approval, or COLA, for a domestically bottled malt beverage that will be sold exclusively in the state in which it was bottled, but the formula approval requirements do apply regardless of whether the beer will be sold in intrastate or interstate commerce. This means that a beer sold only at a taxpaid “tasting room” affiliated with your brewery may be subject to TTB formula approval.
Before applying, first check to see if the beer you are making requires TTB formula approval – not all beers do. Generally, a formula is required if you use ingredients or processes that are not traditional in the production of fermented beverages designated as “beer,” “ale,” “porter,” “stout,” “lager,” or “malt liquor.” We update the list of traditional ingredients and processes from time to time, based on petitions usually submitted by the brewing industry.
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Craft Brewing Business updates their series on customer service tips in the brewery tasting room to include new COVID-19 related procedures. Past editions featured primarily engagement and environment based on observations made while visiting breweries coast to coast. The updated feedback includes comments on everything from customer perception on sanitation/cleanliness to food safety to social distancing.
See the full report here.
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Fair State Brewing, with two locations in St. Paul and Minneapolis, MN became the “first microbrewery in the United States to become unionized,” according to a company statement.
Employees at both locations requested that Fair State recognize their union. In consultation with the member-owner Board of Directors, the company agreed to voluntarily recognize the union.
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A major wind storm early this week that howled through portions of the Pacific Northwest, eastern Washington and parts of Idaho has damaged hops still on the vine and ready for harvest.
Yakima Chief Hops—the grower-owned network of farms that is the country’s largest hop company—reports that the Labor Day windstorms damaged anywhere from 3 to 5 percent of the remaining, yet-to-be-harvested hop supply.
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Gov. Ron DeSantis and Department of Business and Professional Regulation Secretary Halsey Beshears held a roundtable with St. Petersburg-area bar and brewery owners to reassure them they are working towards an end goal of reopening establishments like theirs across the state.
Brewery owners in St. Petersburg said they are slowly starting to see more customers come back months after they were forced to shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic.
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Leaders in the beverage alcohol sector are urging industry advocates across the nation to participate in a national Day of Action today by contacting their members of Congress to urge passage of the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act, S.362/H.R. 1175 (CBMTRA).
“Our nation’s craft brewers, distillers, winemakers, and cider makers have been among the hardest hit during COVID-19,” said the CBMTRA Coalition. “Significantly increasing taxes on these small businesses even in normal circumstances would be devastating, but to do so during a pandemic would undoubtedly force many of them to close. Congress should give these businesses a fighting chance by passing the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act as soon as possible. Only then will they have the opportunity to recover from the harsh economic impacts of COVID-19 and be able to continue to support other vital industries in their communities.”
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Oak Park Brewing in Sacramento, CA is releasing in cans and draft Oak Park’s People’s Beer to honor People’s Brewing Co., one of the first Black-owned breweries in the U.S. and likely in the world.
People’s Brewing was founded by Ted Mack, a Civil Rights crusader and Ohio State football player who brought the Black community together to purchase a small brewery in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
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Ball Corp. announced that they are purchasing a 1.1 million square foot building in Pittston, Pennsylvania that will help to stem the concern over a shortage of cans in the beverage industry.
The new plant is in addition to a new canning facility currently under construction that Ball hopes to have open by early next year.
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Surly Brewing Co. of Minneapolis has announced it will be closing its huge southeast entertainment complex, the Beer Hall and focus on its brewing operation.
“Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in March, Surly has had to adapt, change, pivot, and change again, all in the hope of pushing the two sides of the business–the Brewery and the Beer Hall–through this unprecedented situation and the economic disaster that’s followed,” the company said in a statement on its website.
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The National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA) has released the Beer Purchasers’ Index (BPI) for August 2020 as beer distributors continue to take an aggressive stance in their ordering to minimize out-of-stocks and compensate for lost draft beer volumes and on-premise closures. BPI is the only forward-looking indicator for distributors to measure expected beer demand. The index surveys beer distributors’ purchases across different segments and compares them to previous years. A reading greater than 50 indicates the segment is expanding, while a reading below 50 indicates the segment is contracting.
The total Beer Purchasers’ Index for August 2020 rose to 74 from 58 for August 2019.
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It has been here for a while, lingering around the edges of alcohol sales for a number of years. But it took a pandemic and economic shut-down to push it front and center. Third party online alcohol sales are here to stay and will be just one of the radical shifts in the alcohol industry that we will see going forward after the COVID crisis.
Drizly expects 20 percent of off-premise alcohol purchases to be transacted online within the next five years. It’s time to get to know this emerging sales channel. Craft Brewing Business has a good primer on the different companies that currently provide on-line sales here.
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Stone Brewing has hired Maria Stipp as new CEO, replacing Dominic Engels who left the company in August. Maria is the former CEO of Lagunitas Brewing Co. where she departed in February of this year after a five-year stint.
“Maria has all the qualities we were looking for in a CEO,” explained Steve Wagner, Stone Brewing co-founder & interim CEO. “She brings experience from a very well-respected brewery, and experience from outside the industry too. She lives up to our values and has long admired our revolutionary spirit. Most importantly, she’s someone co-founder Greg Koch and I are honored and excited to work with. And the latter is a must, because we’re sticking around!”
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According to a recent blog post by Bart Watson, chief economist at the Brewers Association, 50% of craft consumers said they had seen the BA’s Seal of Independence, up from 42% last year. More importantly, 31% of craft drinkers and 42% of weekly craft drinkers said they had purchased beer with the seal on the packaging.
Bart walks through additional seal metrics in the blog post here.
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California Governor Gavin Newson laid out in detail a new plan for reopening the state’s economy including new details for the hospitality and alcohol sectors. The new plan will attempt to avoid the spike in COVID-19 cases after the state reopened much of the economy in July.
The plan assigns one of four levels, or tiers, to each county based on virus cases and positivity rate. Businesses will be open to a greater extent in each county as the county moves through the tiers from tier 1 to tier 4.
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Off-premise scan data is continuing to show very strong results with continuing high demand for in-home consumption of alcohol.
According to an overview in Seeking Alpha, total beverage alcohol dollar sales growth accelerated to 18.4% for the week ended August 15 from +17.8% the prior week. Since COVID-19 was first reported in the U.S., total beverage alcohol sales are up 23.4%, consisting of strong growth across spirits (+33.8%), wine (+25.5%) and beer (+18.9%).
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The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) have providing a checklist for FDA-regulated food operations such as breweries, wineries and distillers to use when assessing operations during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially when re-starting operations after a shut down or when reassessing operations because of changes due to the COVID-19 public health emergency caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2.
The check list is here.
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According to the latest TTB Newsletter, the agency has found an increasing number of alcohol beverage advertisements, including company websites and social media accounts, depicting health-related statements that suggest a relationship between the consumption of an alcohol beverage and its purported health benefits or effects. And the TTB reminds all alcohol producers – that’s a no-no.
TTB advertising regulations prohibit any health-related statement that is untrue in any particular or tends to create a misleading impression as to the effects of consumption on health.
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In almost every state, it is illegal to serve alcohol to an intoxicated person. Often it can result in a criminal infraction for the server in addition to the licensee. Most states impose a hefty fine on the business as well.
The Brewers Association has outlined some helpful tips your servers should be well aware of to protect themselves, the customer and the brewery owner.
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Move over grapefruit, pineapple is here.
Lead by the rise of fruit beer in 2015 and the shift towards tropical flavors in the last three years, with grapefruit IPA’s taking the lead, pineapple is now the fastest growing flavor in beer and cider.
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It’s the lazy, hot final days of summer. People need a little cheer from the gloom of the ongoing pandemic. Have you thought about making alcoholic ice cream for your customers?
Here is how to do it legally.
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According to an article in The Drinks Business, survey results show that over half of British nighttime hospitality businesses fear they will not survive more than two more months without further government support.
This would put an estimated 754,000 jobs at risk.
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