PepsiCo purchased one of its bottlers in Southwest Wash, Corwin Beverage, with plans to dissolve its 2 craft beer distribution arms in the process: Kendall's Pioneer and Browar Polska. Kendall's covered SW Wash and as far east as Yakima; Browar stretched across Greater Seattle and Eastern WA. Both sold mainly small, local craft brands. But those brewers are now without a distrib in certain territories following the sudden closures, according to reports.

Less than 8 mos after Ale Asylum closed operations (see Jul 27, 2022 issue), local WI brewer Karben4 agreed to acquire brand rights, co announced today. The 45K sq-ft facility is not involved in the sale as all the brewing equipment in that leased space was auctioned off last yr, CBN understands.

Sapporo USA and Stone Brewing integrated "as fast as possible," combining sales and marketing, and "clarifying priorities as one company" to "drive" their collective sales in Q4 and into 2023, CEO Maria Stipp shared with CBN in recent interview. That fast action seemingly paid off as Stone and Sapporo closed 2022 on a hi note and entered 2023 in growth mode. Collectively, Stone and Sapporo shipments rose 8% to 666K bbls in 2022 including Stone +6% to 343K bbls and Sapporo +10% to 325K bbls. And Stone $$ sales grew 6%, Sapporo grew 7% for 13 wks thru Feb 25 in Nielsen xAOC channels, Maria shared. (Editor's note: in separate IRI multi-outlet + convenience channels, total Sapporo USA $$ rose 2%, volume +1.5%; still solid but a bit slower including convenience and other Sapporo brands like Anchor).

Brewers have been battling each other in court over various issues for decades. This week in 1981, INSIGHTS reported a strange development that surfaced in a lawsuit involving Miller and Falstaff. Falstaff somehow lost "more than 1,000 pages of confidential financial and commercial documents" belonging to Miller. Lost them all without a trace. Court investigated but none turned up. So Miller sued and court fined Falstaff $10,000. Court also demanded return of docs if they ever turn up and warned Falstaff from ever using info for any purpose whatsoever or risk further court action.

Loss of a potential 15-yr distribution and licensing deal with Pabst drove CA-based makers of Cafe Agave spiked cold brew coffee bevs to sue the Missouri winery tasked with producing the bevs, Law360 reported this wk. Cafe Agave enlisted Crown Valley Winery to produce its Cold Spiked Brew bevs as it pursued a long-term exclusive deal with Pabst for a national rollout. But a Pediococcus acidilactici bacteria infection impacted over 14K cases that had to be destroyed. In suit filed in MO fed court, Cafe Agave alleges that Crown Valley "misrepresented and did not follow its own quality assurance program" and wasn't up front about when it found the infection, per Law360. Cafe Agave identified the issue on its own, but only just before it's deadline with Pabst to secure production, so that deal fell thru. It seeks $20 mil from Crown Valley.

Broadly speaking, the Section 232 tariffs on aluminum partially accomplished their aim to shift the market away from imports and toward domestic production, but there were other, mostly negative impacts too, especially on downstream users, a US Intl Trade Commission report explains. Imported aluminum covered by the tariffs fell 31%, while non-covered imports increased 7% and domestic production increased 3.6%, ITC found. Import prices increased 8%, but even domestic prices grew by about 0.9% between 2018 and 2021. Tho the tariffs explain much of the shift in production, they explain little of those price increases, per report.

One of Reyes' newest outposts, now dubbed "Capitol Reyes" in Austin-area, TX, is seemingly going thru growing pains amid the ownership transition since buying Capitol Wright last fall. Capitol Reyes fell "way behind on their routes" with at least a couple accounts, local KVUE news stated in short segment that aired on Mar 14, following report from Beer Biz Daily last week. (Editor's note: Austin isn't only mkt where INSIGHTS hearing about initial operational challenges that are uncharacteristic at Reyes' recently acquired distribs.)

PepsiCo purchased one of its bottlers in Southwest Wash, Corwin Beverage, with plans to dissolve its 2 craft beer distribution arms in the process: Kendall's Pioneer and Browar Polska. Kendall's covered SW Wash and as far east as Yakima; Browar stretched across Greater Seattle and Eastern WA. Both sold mainly small, local craft brands. But those brewers are now without a distrib in certain territories following the sudden closures, according to reports.

MC's making its "biggest push" yet on Miller Lite's new "Tastes Like Miller Time" campaign just in time for March Madness including 15-second spot that debuted Mar 16 (today), co shared. MC's increasing Miller Lite's March media spend 25% vs last yr, "including placements in the NCAA Final Four," and ramping up "scale of the local marketing" to include "custom, local assets in 50+ markets via out-of-home, retail integrations" and more, spokesperson detailed separately. Campaign will also "hit home" with key media partners like NHL, NBA, ESPN, Univision and Netflix.