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» Beverage Industry NewsThe Beer Institute released its monthly unofficial estimate of domestic tax paid shipments by beer brewers for August 2022, which showed an increase of 2.4% compared to August 2021 removals.
The August 2022 estimate is 14,600,000 barrels versus 14,254,197 barrels in August of last year.
The YTD beer shipments are down by 4.2%, at 109,963,330 barrels versus 114,827,350 barrels in January-September 2021.
The UK government is abolishing a proposed increase in duty rates for beer, cider, spirits and wine and instead proposed a temporary measure to reduce the duty on some types of alcoholic beverages.
The announcement was made in a mini-budget delivered by UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng, during which the government detailed its plans to cut taxes and provide relief to inflation hit business. Kwarteng said that the government will extend draught relief to cover smaller kegs of 20 litres and above to help smaller breweries.
More details on the story here.
Last July the New Jersey Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) released new restrictions on breweries in the state such as limiting the number of events a taproom can host annually, placing a cap on the number of special events a brewery can hold and prohibiting food trucks at breweries among other restrictions.
Last week, Death of the Fox Brewing, in Clarksboro, NJ, filed a lawsuit against the ABC in a state appellate court contending that the state is unjustly limiting breweries’ rights to free speech by limiting the amount of advertising they can do. The brewery also claims that the ABC didn’t follow the proper procedure to enact the rules, like going to the state legislature for approval and holding a public comment period as codified in the state law.
More on the story here.
In the slow but steady train of recent craft-on-craft acquisitions, Urban South Brewery in New Orleans has announced the purchase of Florida-based Perfect Plain Brewing Co.
Under the agreement, Urban South will assume operations of the hospitality brand that owns and operates four concepts in Pensacola: Perfect Plain Brewing Co., Garden & Grain, Perennial and The Well. The transaction will officially close on October 1, and all entities will retain their current brands, operations and staff.
D.C. Reeves, founder of Perfect Plain Brewing Co. was recently elected as Pensacola’s next Mayor. The sale of the brewery will allow him more time to focus on his new civic duty.
Pilot Project Brewing, the brewery incubator based in Chicago has purchased the closed Milwaukee Brewing Co. brewery in Milwaukee. The 43,000-square-foot space includes a production facility, taproom and event space.
Pilot Project Brewing acts as a launch pad for start-up breweries, offering assistance with recipes, production scaling, business development, marketing and distribution. Since it began in 2019, Pilot Project Brewing has launched 13 start-up breweries, including Luna Bay Hard Kombucha, ROVM Hard Kombucha, Funkytown Brewery, Azadi Brewing and others.
The expansion to Milwaukee will help the company grow so it can support its current brands, and add more brands in the future. The new facility is expected to open later this fall, with food and four or five brewers already involved in the Pilot Project operation.
While Sober October is approaching, don’t expect your beer sales to fall off the cliff. Most consumers in the U.S. prefer to do their detoxing after the holidays according to Pattern Data Science.
When looking at consumer demand for non-alcoholic beer, wine, and spirits, searches for non-alcoholic wine took up 39% while non-alcoholic beer took up 35% in 2021.
In an effort to promote the the classified ads and jobs posted on ProBrewer in a wider manner, we’ve started new automated Twitter feeds for each.
You can follow along with each, and if your Twitter app supports it, you can search based on category or setup alerts based on those categories. We’ve converted each category name to a hash tag to make those searches easier. Quick example — here’s a search for the latest job ads for brewers/assistant brewers and the latest classified ads for hops.
Read more…
No barley, no wheat, no rye? No problem! Gluten-Free Brewing: Techniques, Processes, and Ingredients for Crafting Flavorful Beer is the latest book release from Brewers Publications.
The book explores the world of gluten-free grains and walks readers through how to make delicious gluten-free beers with a variety of ingredients. Author Robert Keifer addresses the wildly flavorful gluten-free ingredients available today, where to source such ingredients, the malting process, fermentation challenges, and more.
Reyes Beer Division has acquired the assets of DET Distributing in Nashville. It was reported that Reyes will keep both the Nashville and Jackson warehouses in operation.
DET Distributing is a family-owned business founded in 1951 and covers more than 4,000 retailers in 24 counties across Middle and West Tennessee with more than 200 brands. They are a MillerCoors and Constellation house with a wide selection of imports and craft including Sam Adams, New Holland, Sweetwater and others.
Reyes has operations across 8 states and Washington D.C.
An opening and a closing.
Legend Brewing will close its Olde Towne Portsmouth location on Sunday, September 11, while Allagash Brewing in Maine announced yesterday it will open a new satellite tasting room near its current brewery.
After 12 years of contract brewing, Pittsburgh Brewing Co. has fired up its new brewery in Creighton, Pa. and is back to brewing beers such as Iron City, IC Light and IC Mango independently in-house.
Brewers Association (BA) staff will conduct the Hopsource hop sensory assessment in Yakima, Washington again in 2022. Brewers and industry members visiting Yakima for hop selection will have the opportunity to evaluate over 20 varieties of hops that are being considered for advancement in the BA-funded United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Public Hop Breeding Program.
The purpose of Hopsource is to gauge brewer interest in experimental public hop varieties, by harnessing the power of dozens of noses to crowdsource hop variety acceptance.
Total beer sales in Canada have dropped 7.3 per cent compared to last year, according to a report by Beer Canada.
The drop in sales has been attributed to a variety of reasons.
Data published by the European Commission’s statistical office Eurostat shows that EU member states produced slightly more beer in 2021 versus 2020, but production is still below 2019 pre-pandemic numbers.
EU countries combined produced 33.1 billion liters of beer in 2021, as opposed to just under 32 billion liters in 2020. Between 2019 and 2020, the production of beer within the EU dropped by 8% from 34 billion liters.
Also notable was the rise in the production of zero alcohol beer options, increasing by almost 20% on the 2019 level to 1.7 billion liters.
The global hop company BarthHaas has said in its August report that its German hop crop is estimated to be down by as much as 20% vs. 2021. The early maturing varieties such as Hallertau Mittelfrüh, Northern Brewer, Traditional and Perle) have been affected the most.
Larry Bell, craft beer pioneer who founded Bell’s Brewery in 1985, is set to convert a warehouse he currently owns in Kalamazoo, Michigan to become a display hall for his collection of brewery industry memorabilia.
Bell, who sold his brewery last December to Australian brewing conglomerate Lion Little World Beverages, has also just recently purchased a 46,000 square foot building in Kalamazoo which he intends to house the more than 40,000 books he acquired from the collection of historian Larry Massie and a vast collection of jazz artifacts.
With the Modern Times acquisition by Maui Brewing Co. expected to close in late October, the company has announced that new parent company will be called Craft ‘Ohana (Ohana being the Hawaiian name for ‘family’).
In addition to the name change, some key personnel changes were announced. Modern Times CEO Jennifer Briggs will be joining the Craft ‘Ohana executive team as chief experience officer (CXO), a role that will include overseeing company functions related to team member and consumer experience. Briggs became the CEO at Modern Times in October 2021.
Maui Brewing Brewmaster, Kim Brisson-Lutz, is being promoted to vice president of operations for Hawaii and will be responsible for overseeing and leading all brewery operations at the company’s Kihei, Hawaii production facility. And Maui Brewing Chief Operating Officer Scott Metzger will be taking on the role of president and COO, responsible for all day-to-day operations of the combined entity.
The Brewers Association is now accepting seminar proposals for the 2023 Craft Brewers Conference which will take place in Nashville, Tennessee May 7-10. The submission period will close on September 30, 2022. Selected seminars will be notified in November 2022.
Seminar proposals are reviewed and selected by the CBC Seminar Subcommittee, a group of mostly brewery members of the Brewers Association. The CBC 2023 Seminar Subcommittee has prepared a list of suggested seminar topics for each educational track. These topics are not intended to be an exhaustive list, but rather a guide to potential speakers to some of the top priority areas of focus that the committee would like to see presented on at this year’s event. Potential speakers are welcome to submit proposals beyond the scope of these suggestions but are encouraged to keep them in mind when planning their proposal content.
All accepted speakers will receive a full complimentary registration to the event. However, all speakers are responsible for their own travel and lodging expenses.
The Craft Beverage Expo and Distribution Conference (CBE) is relocating the annual event to Pittsburg and will take place March 29-31, 2023 at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.
According to a CBE press release, Pennsylvania ranks second in the number of craft breweries with a total of 486 and is home to over 300 wineries placing them firth in the nation for wine production. The American Craft Spirits Association ranks Pennsylvania fifth in the number of craft distillers with 117.
CBE is a trade exposition and conference for the entire craft beverage industry, with the primary goal of “bringing various vertical beverage markets together to exchange ideas and foster a community of collaboration based on common goals.” The conference focuses on small-batch beverages and the issues that producers of beer, wine, spirits, mead and cider face.
Small brewers have spent the last three years jumping from one business crisis to the next. Inflation is the current hurdle that most are struggling to clear, and that has been coupled with gas prices that were around $5 per gallon for most of the country and even higher in certain cities and regions.
While prices at the pump are dropping and forecasts suggest further easing, the initial sticker shock from earlier this year coupled with the hefty bills that came due are having some breweries re-think their fuel consumption and long-term plans.
There are some basic practices along with forward-thinking that can ease the burden should prices climb high again.