Category: Major Brand News
News coverage of the global and large domestic brewing companies
News Widmer Pub Closes After 22 Year Run
Craft Brew Alliance, owner of Widmer Brothers has decided to close the 22-year-old Widmer pub in Portland, Oregon. On its Facebook page, the company stated that “profitability challenges” and competitive challenges were the reason for the closure. Dating back to 1996, the pub was one of the first brewery-owned pubs in the city.
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News Big Beer Begins Nutritional Labeling
Anheuser-Busch InBev will begin putting large and prominent listing of calories and ingredients as well as the amount of fat, carbohydrates and protein in a serving on Bud Light packaging. This is the first significant brand to carry the nutritional information since major beer makers agreed in 2016 to voluntarily disclose nutrition facts on their products by 2020.
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News Budweiser teams up with Tilray to explore pot drinks
The maker of Budweiser is partnering with medical cannabis company Tilray in a $100 million deal to research cannabis-infused drinks for the Canadian market. The alliance announced Wednesday is the latest foray by a major beer company into the cannabis business in Canada, which legalized recreational marijuana in October.
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News CBA to Open Seattle Brewpub
Craft Brew Alliance (CBA), which is partially owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev, announced that they will finally open a Redhook brewpub in Seattle next month. Called the Redhook Brewlab, it will be located in the Capitol Hill section of downtown. It will be Redhook’s return to its Seattle roots, after closing the Woodinville brewery earlier this year, which was running at about a third of its capacity.
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News ABInBev Dips Toe Further into Craft Beer Media
ZX Ventures, a division of AB InBev, has purchased an ownership interest in RateBeer, the consumer beer forum where beer drinkers exchange information and opinions of beer. The acquisition was made in October of last year but just announced on Friday.
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News Big Beer Buying Spree Continues
MillerCoors announced yesterday that they have acquired a majority stake in Revolver Brewing of Granbury Texas. This is the third craft brewery deal in the last month which includes Terrapin and Hop Valley. Saint Archer Brewing was acquired last fall. Like the previous craft brewery acquisitions, Revolver will operate under the Tenth and Blake high-end unit of MillerCoors which also includes Leinenkugel and Blue Moon.
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News DOJ Approves Mega-Merger; with Stipulations
As expected, the U.S. Department of Justice approved the acquisition of SABMiller by ABI. This was no surprise at all, but what, if any stipulations the DOJ would require as a condition of the merger has been of keen interest to the entire industry.
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News BI Announces Labeling Initiative
The Beer Institute has announced a new initiative to encourage its member companies to display specific consumer information on products, packaging or websites. The “Brewers’ Voluntary Disclosure Initiative” is a voluntarily program in which BI members will include a serving facts statement on their products, as well as disclose ingredients on either the label or secondary packaging via a list of ingredients, a reference to a website with the information or through a QR code.
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News EU OK’s Mega Merger. AB Incentive Plan Looked at in US
Anheuser-Busch InBev got the thumbs up from European regulators to proceed with its $107 billion acquisition of SABMiller. The decision was not unexpected after ABInBev shed numerous brands to satisfy regulators antitrust concerns.
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News Busy Week at Constellation: Going to Pot, Layoffs and a Brewpub
Posted by Tom McCormick
An interesting week at Constellation as various industry sources reported the company has laid off 60 employees in their craft division while at the same time investing $4 billion (billion with a “B”) in the cannabis company Canopy Growth Corporation.
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