The temperance women would be aghast. In Evanston, north of Chicago, where they had their headquarters, the craft distiller FEW has collaborated with a coffee company from Texas to produce – shock horror – a bourbon whiskey finished in coffee barrels. The bourbon – FEW Chameleon – won the collaboration award at the Beverage Forum, held in Chicago 24-25 April 2018.

Over the past two years, taprooms and satellite retail outposts have emerged as both lucrative profit centres for craft brewers and opportunities to deliver unique experiences to thirsty consumers, says Brewbound in a recent post.

The Brewers Association (BA) released on March 14, 2018 its annual lists of the top 50 craft and overall brewing companies in the US, based on beer sales volume. Of the top 50 overall brewing companies, 40 were craft brewing companies.

If craft brewers can collaborate, so can the industry’s big players. AB-InBev and drinks company Beam Suntory announced on 3 April 2018 that, through their brands Budweiser and Jim Beam, they will collaborate on a limited-edition “Budweiser Reserve Copper Lager.”

It is becoming clearer why AB-InBev on 1 January 2018 replaced its North American chief Joao Castro Neves by another Brazilian company veteran, Michel Doukeris: Mr Neves, who was widely seen as a potential successor to CEO Carlos Brito, not only failed to stem the decline of the brewer’s major brands Bud and Budweiser, he was also held responsible for Goose Island’s bruising 2017.

The man who invented Blue Moon for Coors in 1995 believes he has the magic touch to bring out yet another game-changing beverage. Keith Villa, 55, who retired from Molson Coors in January 2018 after working at the firm for 32 years, plans to market a cannabis-infused non-alcoholic craft beer.

The Brewers Association (BA) reported on 3 April 2018 that exports of US craft beer rose 3.6 percent to 482,309 barrels (564,000 hl) in 2017. The organisation valued those products sold abroad at USD 125.4 million. While this is a record high, it is now the third consecutive year that growth has slowed.

The financially troubled Green Flash brewery has been sold to a group of investors following a foreclosure by the company’s principal lender, Comerica Bank, media reported on 2 April 2018. The announcement of the sale comes just a week after Green Flash closed its Virginia Beach brewery 16 months after opening the East Coast operation.

A record number of breweries opened their doors last year, according to a new report from the Brewers Association (BA) published in March 2018. It estimates that 997 breweries opened in 2017, bringing the total number of US breweries to 6,372.

Shocking news. A combination of too much debt and stalled growth has forced San Diego’s Green Flash Brewing to cease operations at its 100,000 barrel East Coast brewery in Virginia Beach, with the loss of 43 jobs in the process.