Pop quiz: which state has more expensive beer, Wisconsin, Colorado, or Texas? The folks at Toast have some numbers out this week, and they’re quite interesting.

With ten varieties released in the past year, hop breeding enters its most prolific era. Three trends define the hop industry: commercial consolidation, the arrival of small players, and the overall decline in acreage. Let’s look at the new varieties and where things stand today.

Columbia Distributing announced it has acquired Portland’s Point Blank, a distributor founded in 2003 to serve the metro area’s craft breweries.

Breweries are lowering prices on N/A beer even thought it’s an expanding segment and the only one really exciting people in the industry. To me, that looks like an important tell. 

We have been seeing a tsunami of news articles about how badly the beer industry is doing. It seemed disproportionate to the actual headwinds, and at least one report out last week shows some heartening signs.

The tariffs are on; the tariffs are off. The tariffs are—it’s exhausting. Last night a federal court ruled they’re off again. But beer fans take note, not all of them, including two biggies. 

The Brewers Association has their official end-of-2024 report out, and along with it their list of the largest US breweries. One thing you can’t help but notice: it’s a lot easier to survive as a larger brewery with a little help from your friends.

Remember that brown-label, gray-market “Corona Mega” I discovered at a Mexican restaurant in Tillamook, Oregon a year ago? Lawyers have gotten involved. (Plus a brief, unrelated comment on the tariffs.)

A couple weeks ago, we learned that Portland’s Breakside would be buying a winery and opening two new taprooms, increasing their growing empire to eight locations. But it was their new membership, the Breakside Collective, that caught my eye.

Let’s say the cost of aluminum cans rises to the equivalent of five cents a pint. Does the brewer simply raise prices five cents a pint and pass this cost along? Brewer and onetime economist Van Havig has the answer. 

On Saturday, President Trump authorized 25% tariffs on our neighbors and close allies Mexico and Canada. This was just one move in a hurricane of activity that has destabilized the US economy and federal government.

Molson Coors recently purchased a small Chicago brewpub called Cruz Blanca. This is a little counter-intuitive, since they have been getting out of the craft beer market. But to understand the move, look at a (domestic) Spanish lager killing it in Britain.

Yesterday, Fintech and the National Beer Wholesalers Association presented numbers of beer’s sales performance for 2024 to date, and things were actually not terrible. Here is an overview, along with the key findings.