NEWS

If, for some reason, you have a hard time meeting people at a music festival who are um … also into music – HEINEKEN thankfully has you covered! Yes, meet “The Clinker!”

Check out news items initially reported in the Brewbound Insider Newsletter April 2-3, including headlines from the Brewers Association, Molson Coors, Sierra Nevada and more.

When two spirits giants merge, what does that mean for smaller, independent suppliers?

As the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments marched into Final Four weekend, craft was the only segment to lose share of volume and dollar sales across all four regions, according to on-premise data firm BeerBoard.

Dallas-based Four Corners Brewing Company and Oklahoma City-based Coop Ale Works “have combined operations” in a “strategic merger” to create the Frontier Beverage Collective, according to an April 1 note shared with distributor partners and obtained by Brewbound.

U.S. beer shipments did a 180 in February, increasing 0.2% year-over-year (YoY) after a 1 million barrel loss in January, according to the latest report from the Beer Institute (BI).

In the wake of major shakeups in the middle-tier that will see the largest distributors getting even bigger and major manufacturers adding brands to their portfolios, Fingers newsletter author Dave Infante joins the Brewbound Podcast to recap a wild couple of weeks in the bev-alc industry.

Mocktail Club, the NA sparkling beverage brand founded by Pauline Idogho in 2019, has accomplished an unlikely feat: landing placement in 100 Virginia ABC stores, possibly one of the first times an adult non-alc (ANA) brand has cracked a control state system.

The luck of the Irish carried on for the beer category in the week after St. Patrick’s Day. Off-premise dollar sales of beer increased 3.1% week-over-week, to $863.3 million, for the week ending March 21, in NIQ-tracked retail channels. That marked a $33.7 million boost from the $829.6 million in sales the prior week.

Tilray Brands’ hit a company revenue record in Q3, generating $207 million in the quarter, but there was little help from the global cannabis firm’s bev-alc brands.

Check out news items initially reported in the Brewbound Insider Newsletter, including headlines from Tilray, Diageo, Andrews Distributing & more.

Bardstown Bourbon’s president Pete Marino is leaving his post in June after three years with the company.

“Flavored alcohol” continues to be a prominent growth driver in the beverage-alcohol landscape, but the field of notable participants is contracting, according to a new report from Bump Williams Consulting (BWC) VP and chief strategy officer Dan Wandel.

Allagash Brewing founder Rob Tod brought something of a family heirloom – and a piece of American beer marketing history – for a show-and-tell segment in his keynote address to the New York State Brewers Conference in Albany last month.

Bev-alc returned to growth in Circana-tracked off-premise channels in Week 2 of St. Patrick’s Day celebrations, according to the latest report from the market research firm.

The YTD 2026 Beverage Performance report from 3 Tier Beverages highlights a market undergoing a meaningful recalibration, with modest top-line declines masking significant structural shifts.

Wisconsin’s Eagle Park Brewing & Distilling has acquired SoulBoxer Cocktail Co., setting the stage for Eagle Park’s further expansion into canned cocktails spanning alcoholic, non-alcoholic and THC-infused formats.

The former executive team behind Casamigos (minus its celebrity owners) is making another move in the bev-alc industry with Por Qué No, a ready-to-drink (RTD) tequila and vodka offering.

If there’s a stay of execution, it’ll probably be at the last minute. That’s what hemp lobbyists and industry groups are starting to believe about the potential for a reprieve from the upcoming November 12 THC ban, according to the Coalition for Adult Beverage Alternatives (CABA).

Abita Brewing Company’s 40th year could be its biggest since the mid-2010s craft beer boom. The Louisiana craft brewery’s forecast for 2026 is 170,000 barrels – nearly double its previous annual output, Abita president Troy Ashley told Brewbound.