USA | Beer imports in April, the first full month of lockdown, were 3.2 million hl. That is 23 percent or 946,000 hl below the same month last year, the Beer Institute, a trade body, reported on 4 June 2020.

USA | PicoBrew was considered the future of beer. But the world’s first automatic all-grain homebrewing appliance, which was as big as a microwave and could sit on a cupboard, is currently winding down.

Mexico | Because of the covid-19 pandemic, the Mexican government has extended brewery closures from the original date 1 May to 1 June 2020. This applies to all “non-essential” industries. Brewing and beer distribution are not considered essential.

USA | As consumers have hunkered down in their homes, reduced their shopping trips and stocked up on large packs of 12-ounce cans of trusted beer brands, demand for cans has shot through the roof.

USA | If only Molson Coors had heeded the old adage: A lawsuit is a machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage. Because on 1 May 2020 a federal appeals court struck down a ruling by a lower court, which had been in its favour.

Canada | The hype over Cannabis beverages seems to have fizzled. Brewers AB-InBev, Molson Coors and Constellation Brands had big plans to sell THC- or CBD-infused beverages by the end of last year. But only two have hit shelves yet.

USA | It is probably bad taste and also highly dangerous to even think aloud how the corona virus will impact the other Corona. But still, will people, in years to come, think of sun, sand and beaches when picking up a Corona, or of that deadly virus that has afflicted the globe?

USA | With consumer demand for beer shifting to off-premise retailers, Boston Beer’s breweries had to change production from kegs to cans and bottles. Because most of its packaged beers are produced by third-party contract brewers, this led to increased costs.

USA | Doomsayers are having a field day with predicting that covid-19 is going to have a long-term and dramatic effect on the craft brewing industry. Yet, it all depends on how long the public must/wants to stay at home.

USA | In retrospect, 2019 may have been “peak craft”. The Brewers Association (BA) estimates that independents produced 31 million hl beer, up nearly 4 percent, increasing craft’s market share by volume to 13.6 percent.