USA | Craft brewer Lagunitas may have gone fully corporate under Heineken’s roof, but it is not as if its brewers have lost their knack for creating new recipes. Lagunitas was called in to modernise the iconic brown ale and give it a more craft appeal for release in the US in March 2019.

USA | You would have thought that Corona Extra, the number one imported beer brand, with a near 5 percent share of the market, can do no wrong. But in 2018, after more than a decade of growth, the brand swung into decline.

USA | It looks like a nitro-stout but it will taste like a cola. Called Nitro Pepsi, the drink combines nitrogen infusion with the classic Pepsi taste to “deliver an entirely reimagined cola experience”, according to Pepsi’s PR.

USA | Taking localism to its logical conclusion, over 90 percent of ingredients in Black Button’s spirits are grown or produced in its home state of New York. Calling itself a farm distillery, Black Button was founded in Rochester, New York, in 2012 by Jason Barrett, then only 24 years old. Mr Barrett stems from a family of button-makers. Their buttons have closed suits worn by presidents, popes, kings, and businessmen the world over, he says on his website.

USA | ZX Ventures, AB-InBev’s venture capital firm, has acquired the remaining stake of beer ratings website RateBeer.com that it did not already own, Brewbound reported on 4 February 2019.

USA | Gluten-free beers may be still a niche but a rapidly expanding one, it seems. One of the largest US craft brewers, Sierra Nevada, on 4 February 2019, announced on Facebook the acquisition of its first brewery, Sufferfest, from San Francisco. Founded in 2016 by Caitlin Landesberg, a long-distance trail runner, who was looking for a healthier post-run beer, Sufferfest’s beers are meant to appeal to “athletes and adventurers”, but not just them.

USA | In case you missed out on Super Bowl this year, here’s the verdict: the commercial breaks were almost as bland as the sluggish on-field action, says marketingdive.com. The only reason the event (3 February 2019) will linger in viewers’ memories is a Bud Light commercial. It aimed a broadside against Miller Lite and Coors Light for using a corn-derived sugar or corn syrup called dextrose.

USA | Having recently turned 70, the founder and past president of the Brewers Association, Charlie Papazian, has officially retired from his duties.

Mexico | With a plebiscite on its brewery in Mexicali, Baja California, looming, Constellation Brands has slowed the construction of its USD 1.5 billion plant with a capacity of 10 million hl. It now hopes to finish construction work in 2021, which represents a delay of two years. Constellation originally planned to open it in December 2018.

USA | Could there be a correlation between declining beer sales in the US and the onward march of legal recreational cannabis? AB-InBev’s CEO Carlos Brito said that the company still does not have any data to prove that.