For decades, Yorkshire’s Samuel Smith Brewery managed to do things their own, very weird way, seemingly flouting the rules of business, if not physics. But a three-year pandemic may have changed the calculus.

Forty percent of America’s breweries are small neighborhood affairs that, prior to 2020, were fun and rewarding little businesses. With Covid, inflation, supply-chain issues, and difficulties getting to market, how many still are? In Portland, one of them just called it quits.

A massively over-spiced bottle of holiday ale from one of America’s grand old craft breweries, not to mention a cringey line extension at odds with the brand, have me worried.

It appears Elon Musk has actually acquired Twitter after all. But whether that’s good news or bad, the major social media sites are in big trouble. Now that legacy media is good and truly gutted, the troubling question is this: what comes next?

In 2017, the Brewers Association launched the “independent brewer” seal as a way of making customers aware of who makes their beer. Looking back after five years, has it made a difference?

On July 1, New Jersey’s alcohol regulatory issued rules limiting what breweries could do in their own taprooms. They were comically draconian, and outraged New Jerseyans have been filling the internet with disgusted memes. Is it really the case that NJ wants these taprooms to fail, and if so, who benefits? I spoke to one man with some answers.

In the lifecycle of any successful brewery, there are phases of growth and cultural currency—but also stumbling and mistakes. Stone’s sale to Sapporo gives us one of the most potent cases in point. 

Massachusetts-based Spencer Brewing, America’s only Trappist brewery, abruptly announced its closure a couple weeks back. The causes tell us a lot about how challenging the brewing business has become. 

The Brewers Association released preliminary numbers on how breweries did in 2021 today. It includes some good news, some surprises, and very little bad news. I have the highlight findings, and a nice list of how this year’s top-50 breweries fared over the past year.

"We humans are very sensory-driven and start making assumptions as soon as we see something. The beer business is closer to being in the entertainment business." Josh Pfriem, describing the newly-designed cans that replace the brewery’s 500 ml bottles.

A few hours apart, longtime stalwart Hair of the Dog and relative newcomer Modern Times announced they would close the respective breweries that sat a quarter mile apart in industrial Southeast Portland.

Consolidation among craft brewers happens so often most people just shrug at the announcement of a new acquisition. One small brewer explains why you should care. 

For the most successful of craft breweries, “independence” is increasingly a losing proposition. 

Monster Beverage announced the purchase of Canarchy today, a collective composed of the breweries Cigar City, Oskar Blues, Deep Ellum, Perrin, Squatters, and Wasatch. The deal was valued at $330 million.

So we bid adieu not just to Saint Archer, but the over-exuberance of an era that thought a buying such a brewery was a good bet. I don’t expect to see Molson Coors buying another small, two-year-old brewery founded by a bunch of surfers anytime soon.

We need to talk about a new product from the Anheuser-Busch InBev corporation of São Paulo/Leuven/New York: Bud Light Seltzer Hard Soda. If the string of adjectives and nouns in that title makes sense to you, and it almost certainly does, something weird has happened.

International giants like AB InBev and Molson Coors have made no secret of their strategy to pursue seltzers and FMBs—even if it hurts their beer business. So why is Kirin doubling down on beer, and especially, craft beer?