Sierra Nevada will postpone reopening its "Taprooms, Gift Shops, Tours and Torpedo Room" until further notice, co announced on social media over the weekend. Sierra originally planned to reopen in July, "but over these past few weeks, we've seen cases of COVID-19 take a turn for the worse nationwide." So "we've decided to keep our doors closed with a targeted reopening in October…allow[ing] us to reopen safely and confidently." Curbside pickup, taproom take out and online beer ordering will still be available, resuming on Jul 8.

Yesterday, the US hit a record high for new Covid-19 cases, with almost 51K positive diagnoses in a single day, according to Johns Hopkins data. Every day for the last week, the daily new case count has been higher than the previous late-Apr record of over 36K cases. Because of this deeply troubling trend, breweries across the country now face a new round of forced taproom closings, just weeks after regaining the ability to offer on-site sales, re-raising concerns about how long brewing bizzes will be restricted and how they'll survive.

San Diego beer scene gearing up to welcome another new brewery, but this time helmed by some familiar faces. Father-son duo Pat and Shawn Mcilhenney recently formed Mcilhenney Brewing with plans to take over space that was first home of the pair's first brewery, Alpine, according to San Diego Beer News, brand new outlet from SD insider Brandon Hernández. The pair founded Alpine Brewing in its namesake town back in 2002, operating on relatively small scale and picking up plenty of accolades before striking brewing partnership with Green Flash around 2013.

Turns out Constellation sold Ballast Point for $41.1 mil to Kings & Convicts on Mar 2, 2020, according to co's fiscal Q1 filing (as first reported in sibling pub INSIGHTS Express). From $1 bil down to $41.1 mil in 4.5 yrs. Plus, $200 mil in writedowns over the yrs and volume cut in more than half from its peak to 174K bbls in calendar 2019. That's a lot of value that went down the drain. Undoubtedly, it's only gotten tuffer with on-premise shutdown and continued soft Ballast Point trends in scan. Indeed, Kings & Convicts sales are down 26% YTD thru Jun 14 in IRI foodstores, including down 30% for latest 4 wks. But while Ballast Point deteriorated, Constellation Brands Beer Division grew from strength to strength and oper income grew by about $1 bil in same period.

Montauk Brewing is another craft co able to grow thru pandemic pains with an extra lift from new hard seltzers catchin' fire. Montauk grew 22% in Jun, posting its biggest mo on record with just under 100K cases sold, co-founder Vaughan Cutillo and recently hired sales veep and beer/cider biz vet Terry Hopper shared with CBN. As co celebrated its 8th anniversary in biz this week, Vaughan reflected that June 2020 was more volume than it shipped in all of 2015. Vast majority of growth is comin' from Long Island, where Montauk sales flew +75% in Jun with its distrib Boening. Sales are down in NYC metro with SKI, where Covid-19 initially hit hardest, but already recovered a fair amount vs initial mos of shutdown. Montauk sales continue to cross new milestones regardless, passing Brooklyn to become 3rd largest craft brand family (including hard seltzers tho) in NY IRI foodstores for most recent period, only behind Blue Moon and Sam Adams. And taproom sales at the Montauk brewery already operating at 80% of last year's revs even with limited hours and loss of draft sales.

The scale keeps tippin’ toward cans in scans. Craft cans officially crossed the 50% mark, making up over half of total craft segment $$ sales in Nielsen All Outlet data for the latest 4 wks thru Jun 13, latest report shows. Craft cans grew 34.5% to nearly $250 mil while craft bottles slipped 0.5% to $242 mil for period. Can volume is over half of segment sales for latest 13 wks too. Even as bottle sales improved steadily in recent periods, bottle $$ still down 12% for 52 wks, -9% for 26 wks, and -5% for latest 13 wks thru Jun 13; craft cans accelerated to +42% for 13 wks before settling in more recent weeks. But cans continue to collectively make up all of craft segment’s growth in scans these days.

Brewers Assn named Highland Brewing founder Oscar Wong, Odell COO Brendan McGivney and Austin Beerworks' co-founder and director of operations Adam DeBower as recipients of its 2020 Industry Awards, org announced earlier today.

Couple of notable transitions in Little Rock small brewing biz. First, new owners announced debut of East Sixth Brewing, new name for co previously operated as Rebel Kettle Brewing. Founder/brewer of Rebel Kettle John Lee sold shares and departed co in early March, Rock City Eats reported at time. Redesigned beer lineup and taproom aims for "welcoming," "community-driven" feel, brewer Josh Davis told Arkansas Times. Elsewhere in town, a 2nd taproom for Flyaway Brewing, under Brood & Barley moniker, reopened over the weekend in location once operated by Core Brewing as a taproom, the Democrat & Chronicle's food blog wrote. The paper's previous reporting suggests Core operated the pub for a short time starting in 2018 before handing over reins late last yr to restaurant it originally partnered with to run kitchen. That co since closed location, now operated as more upscale taproom by Flyaway, around corner from its brewery.