INDIANAPOLIS — “How was everyone’s 2024?” Matt Gacioch asks. The near-capacity crowd in this conference hall here at the Indiana Convention Center murmurs. The Brewers Association’s new-ish chief economist surveys the room like an improv artist waiting for a prompt. “That wasn’t a rhetorical question,” he says. Finally, somebody chimes in. “Crappy!” No improvisation necessary: It’s an answer everybody sort of expects, including Gacioch. The question that brought America...| VinePair
It’s no secret that 2024 was a tough year for the craft brewing industry. But even in the face of tremendous challenges, craft brewers carry on. The Brewers Association (BA) recently released its annual production report recounting the state of the craft brewing industry in the United States. Last year, the number of craft breweries that closed outpaced the total number of brewery openings nationwide for the first time since 2005. Over the course of 2024, 529 breweries closed their doors, w...| VinePair
Bud Light was the undisputed best-selling beer in the country. Twisted Tea was just hitting its long-simmering breakout run. Reyes Beverage Group was still called Reyes Beer Division. It was a different beer industry when I first took the helm here at Hop Take in September 2022. Which, duh: Time is linear, and change is constant, etc., etc. Still, my tenure here each week has coincided with some of the most tectonic shifts the American brewing business has known since… I mean… certainly t...| VinePair
One of BrewDog’s co-founders is stepping away from the company, according to a Friday report from U.K. publication “The National.” Martin Dickie, who founded the Scottish craft beer brand with James Watt in 2007, unexpectedly announced his departure in an email to the staff, citing personal reasons. “This business has been my life for the last 18 years and I have enjoyed (almost) every minute,” he shared in the email.| VinePair
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. In America’s most lucrative drinks market, a multi-billion-dollar beverage-alcohol heavyweight coordinated behind the scenes to get its hands on one of the country’s most lucrative brands. The story may sound familiar to brewing-industry insiders, and it should. After all, it wasn’t even a decade ago that Reyes Beverage Group (RBG), subsidiary of the sixth-largest privately held company in the United States and by far its largest beer distribut...| VinePair
Not even halfway into 2025, Republic National Distributing Company (RNDC) has hemorrhaged key supplier accounts in markets across the country, and especially in California. Now, VinePair has learned, the country’s second-largest wine-and-spirits distributor will be departing the Golden State entirely at the beginning of September. Over the weekend, social media was abuzz with versions of this rumor.| VinePair
Sometimes, I worry I’m too hard on the craft brewing industry. With infrequent exception, the folks who own and run the nation’s ~10,000 small and independent breweries are doing their best to make high-quality beer for their customers and contribute positively to their communities. Unfortunately, operating in good faith isn’t the same as operating a good business, and as the American thirst for craft beer has plateaued in recent years, that distinction has become painfully clear. Squar...| VinePair
Update: At 4:44am ET on 7/12/2023, roughly 12 hours after this story was published, Anchor Brewing Company issued a press release announcing it will cease operations and liquidate its business. VinePair will be updating reporting throughout the day. Clarification (7/20/23): A previous version of this article stated that multiple current and former workers had told VinePair that Russian River Brewing Co. was a potential suitor to acquire Anchor from Sapporo USA.| VinePair
