BREWSCAPE
THE LATEST CRAFT BEER BRAND NEWS
Dale’s: Top Six Craft canned beer pioneers Oskar Blues Brewery led the aluminum revolution in 2002, so it’s no surprise that the Colorado-based brewery’s flagship release, Dale’s Pale Ale, finished 2016 as the nation’s top-selling craft can six-pack at U.S. supermarkets, according to market research firm IRI Worldwide. That feat capped a year in which Oskar Blues shipped more than 200,000 barrels of beer, bolstered by the expansion of its production facility in Brevard, North Carolina, and the addition of a new brewery in Austin, Texas. Across its three locations, Oskar Blues now has the ability to brew upwards of 500,000 barrels of beer annually, the company said in a year end review. Collectively, Oskar Blues Holdings’ family of breweries – Cigar City, Perrin Brewing, Wasatch and Squatters – produced nearly 350,000 barrels of beer in 2016. Jai Alai IPA, made by Cigar City, was the second-best selling 6-pack of canned craft beer in 2016, the company said. Among other highlights noted in the release, Oskar Blues said it added new distribution in Oklahoma, North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana as it filled out a 50-state distribution footprint in 2016. Meanwhile, the company also started exporting its beer to Australia, the Netherlands and Belgium, and the brewery’s products are now being sold in nine international markets. The company expects to continue adding international markets in 2017 and will soon add distribution in Brazil and Japan. The Colorado-born craft brewery also expanded its
Category Expansion: And Even More Breweries
barrel-aging program last year, which led to national distribution of Barrel-aged Ten Fidy Imperial Stout in 19.2 oz. singleserve cans. For its taproom crowd, the brewery released rum barrel-aged versions of Death by Coconut and Ten Fidy as well as a Java Ten Fidy. Oskar Blues also released the first American craft beer 16-pack with Pinner Throwback IPA. Two new year-round beers – Beerito Amber Mexican Lager and Priscilla White Wit Wheat – were also introduced, and the company launched limited-release cans of Passion Fruit Pinner IPA and Hotbox Coffee Porter. Other highlights from Oskar Blues in 2016 included: Crowlers, the 32 oz. to-go cans, were made available in more than 1,000 locations. The company launched four new flavors of B. StiFF & Sons Old Fashioned Soda Pop as well as a brick-and-mortar location of Oskar Blues Fooderies’ CHUBurger/Hotbox Roasters Café in Denver’s River North District. And the company’s nonprofit charitable organization, CAN’d Aid Foundation, raised $768,000, built and donated about 600 bikes to underprivileged children, donated 330,000 cans of drinking water to places like Flint, Michigan, during its water crisis and other good deeds.
16 BEVNET MAGAZINE – JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017
For the third straight year, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau issued more than 1,000 new brewery permits, bringing the total number of permitted U.S. breweries to a record high of 7,190 in 2016. According to recent TTB data published by National Beer Wholesalers Association chief economist Lester Jones, the number of permitted U.S. breweries has tripled from 2,343 over the last six years.
Lester Jones, National Beer Wholesalers Association chief economist
The government agency issued 1,110 new permits in 2016, down slightly from the 1,142 new permits issued in 2015. Permitted breweries include brick and mortar facilities and alternating proprietorships while excluding contract brewers. It also includes brewers who may have recently shut down their brewing operations but have not yet been “delisted” by the TTB. As of December 31, 2016, California had the most permitted breweries in the U.S., at 927, and Washington, D.C., had the fewest with 13.
According to Jones, California’s 927 permitted breweries is “almost as many as the entire U.S. total of 974 permits in 1995.” Similarly, the TTB counted 264 total permitted breweries in Florida last year, which is 14 more than the 1990 national count of 250, according to Jones. On a national basis, there are now 2.2 breweries per 100,000 residents, up from 0.7 per 100,000 residents in 2010. And, at the state level, Vermont has the highest number of breweries per capita, at 11.7, followed by Maine (7.7),
Montana (7.6) and Colorado (7.0), Jones reported. “Around the country, per capita brewery measures in many states have more than tripled since 2010,” he wrote. But as overall beer consumption continues decline, Jones said he believes the increasing number of permitted breweries will only create stiffer competition in an already crowded beer category. “With continued declines in per capita consumption of beer on the books for 2016, this year’s beer market is gearing up for another highly competitive, innovative and dynamic battle for share for consumer’s mind, wallet and stomach,” he wrote.