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This month in 2011, CBN noted that story of Mexican craft brewers straining against their nation's major beer-producing corporations sounded familiar, as told by Ken Ellingwood of the LA Times. Indeed, Jose Morales, one such brewer, echoed those David and Goliath tales told by American craft pioneers when he said "I keep producing. I keep knocking on doors." In this version, Goliath was played by Grupo Modelo and FEMSA -- the two big Mexican brewers (FEMSA now owned by Heineken, Grupo Modelo by ABI) that produced or sold over 99% of the beer in Mexico. And Mexicans drank a lot of beer: 54 mil bbls, nearly 16 gallons per year per person. Yet the Mexican microbrewers association said that only 8 of every 100,000 beers (.008 share) consumed in Mexico were craft brewed - much smaller than American craft, over 5 share of US beer volume and climbing at that point. There was some good news though: Mexican craft brewers had the same friends as their American counterparts: Millennials and social media. Younger Mexicans constantly tracked Facebook and Twitter (now X) and were "increasingly quick to embrace foreign trends, from smartphones to designer coffee," according to the Times. This month in 2012, "the craft brewing community is poised and ready for Americans to drink more beer," and were doing so by embracing session beers, wrote CBN. Craft brewers had been flooding the market lately with them. The trend made its way onto almost every list of predictions for craft beer in 2012, and breweries listened. "An English mild here, a Belgian table beer there, and more shandies sliding onto shelves than you can shake a lemon at." While arguments abounded about what exactly constitutes a "session" beer, most agreed: the advent of more sessionable craft brews logically implied more craft volume.No one really expected $15 bombers or suggestions for beer and food pairings to disappear. "However, this push for more easy-drinkin' ales (and lagers) points to a greater understanding that in order to gain drinkers and grow craft volume, brewers need to offer more beers that fit into how Americans already consume their beer," wrote CBN. John Holl, in his post for CraftBeer.com, offered that "trading in the 'lite' for something with flavor, a lower abv beer can be a gateway" to other craft brands. Here was the opportunity. The vast, vast majority of beer consumed in America was low-alcohol. As more craft brewers attempted to build gateways of their own - rather than depend on big brewer entrants or established craft options - the challenge would be whether these brewers can get their beers into the hands of current non-craft drinkers. One of the big trends for 2026 is finding a middle ground between the recent rise of non-alc craft and the "session" trend of the early 2010s, launching beers below 4% or even 3% ABV.This month in 2013, there was plenty to celebrate at SweetWater as 50K fans rolled into Atlanta for its annual 420 Fest weekend. Co announced "completion of recent $19 mil expansion, including addition of 250-bbl brewhouse and a bunch of 1000-bbl tanks to boost capacity to about 400K bbls." SweetWater was up 30% YTD thru Mar 24 in SIG multichannel data and was setting themselves up for more growth. Co was "full speed ahead" as it prepped for movement into parts of FL, NC and SC it wasn't already in. By end of Q3 of that yr, SweetWater would be selling in 9 southeastern states after editions of LA, KY and VA.This month in 2014, CBN reported another key craft brand was on the move in Chicago. Founders Brewing brands were headed to giant AB distrib City Bevs from Louis Glunz Beer thruout Chicagoland. This was yet another in a series of significant distribution changes in Chi for hot craft brands. Lots of moving pieces. Half Acre had moved to Windy City outside of downtown Chi a couple of weeks prior. It had been north of Chi with 3 distribs, including 2 in Chi's MillerCoors cluster of 8 distribs. That followed move to Chi MillerCoors cluster of Dogfish Head and Revolution brands, plus Three Floyds move to Windy City. Most of those brands were previously sold by Glunz, which typically got payments for high multiples of 8x or more. Then too, giant wine and spirits distrib Wirtz had also ramped up in craft, adding key craft brewers like Deschutes, Ballast Point, Ale Asylum and more. This was first significant addition for new City Bevs, since Hand Family Cos acquired AB's 30% stake earlier that yr. It partnered in City Bevs with BDT Capital, which bought River North late the prior yr, thereby unifying AB's distribution throughout Chicagoland. Founders also had recently announced its intro in Arizona with another giant AB distrib, Hensley & Co.This month in 2015, First Beverage Group's JB Shireman cautioned about a potential "valuation bubble" at a CBC seminar. "This industry's become pretty frothy lately," JB acknowledged during seminar on exit strategies. However, "we could perhaps be on a little bit of a valuation bubble for several reasons." One was that values may dip once largest strategic buyer (referring to ABI) goes from "acquisition mode to execution mode with these brands," it'll stop doing deals as aggressively. And once "others" (smaller strategic buyers and/or PE firms) "realize the highest bidder has left the table, why bid against themselves?" asked JB. "The other thing" is that private equity strategy to "gather a bunch of [breweries] up and take them to the public market" is "going to be more difficult than they think." While that seemed to be "succession plan du jour for a lot of the PE funds coming into this," JB thought "it will work for some" but "I don't think 15 PE firms are all going to do that well." "So the ones that do it well on the front end may work out ok," but "others may be left holding the bag," realizing they've "overpaid thinking that's what they need to do to get into the game" and eventually "throw their hands up&hellip;take a haircut and move on to other things." Indeed, "that could cause values to come down significantly." Constellation acquired Ballast Point for $1 bil (with a 'b') that Nov, a high-water mark in craft valuations that did not hold.This month in 2016, fast-growing Virginia brewer Devils Backbone became the 8th craft brewer acquired by AB's The High End biz unit. Devils Backbone had been on a tear since it expanded beyond its brewpub beginnings by building its "Outpost" production facility in 2012. That facility produced about 10K bbls that year, grew to 25K bbls in 2013, 45K bbls in 2014 and shipped about 62K bbls in 2015. It targeted production in the "mid-90s" for 2016, co-founder/CEO Steve Crandall told CBN earlier that year, after expanding capacity to about 150K bbls. And Steve felt co was on track to 250K bbls by 2020. All of that growth had happened in relatively small 5-state (+DC) footprint, with about 80% of DBB's biz in home-state Virginia, Steve told CBN. And the Outpost still only occupied about 38K sq-ft, with limited storage and minimal office space. Its deal with AB, terms of which were undisclosed, came at a time when the DBB brewery was "busting at the seams," Steve said, and had "significant issues" in terms of space. Transition was expected to go quickly as Devils Backbone was already 90% aligned with AB network.

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