Brewers seem to believe that summer makes us feel nostalgic: that previous summers were always better than the one happening now. The memories are really fun to talk about. But now we can stop sharing memories. We can go and buy the real thing.

Aha! Is this the first step towards the much discussed closer cooperation between Heineken and Molson Coors, at least in the US? In early June 2017, Molson Coors announced that it signed a 10-year import deal which allows the number two brewer in the US to import, market and distribute the Heineken-owned Mexican beer brand Sol, beginning this autumn.

Keep It Real but Keep It Afloat

America now has more breweries than ever. And that might be a problem. New arrivals, riding the craft beer wave, are clogging beer shelves and eating into the sales of legacy brands. Alarmists have declared a state of emergency: a shakeout looms large. Or does it?

The global yeast technology company Renaissance BioScience Corp. (RBSC) announced on 6 June 2017 that it will receive a multi-year, non-repayable contribution of up to CAD 500,000 from the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP). The funding will support the company’s ongoing research and development efforts through the advancement of its proprietary, non-genetically modified organisms (non-GMO) yeast strain development platform.

Now it becomes clearer why the website Beer Studs called for a boycott of crafty brands as well as websites that review those beers.

While insiders are still debating which factors contributed to craft beer’s mid-single digit increase in 2016, news has come in that in 2017 growth could be even slimmer.

America First. Some politicians were irritated that Genesee Brewing Company, a brewery from New York state, might receive state funding while buying tanks from China that could have been produced in New York.

Another Asheville craft beer brewery has undergone an ownership change, but this time the sale was not met with outrage, as in the case of Wicked Weed, which was sold to AB-InBev in early May 2017.

When the Brewers Association published its list of “crafty” beer brands in 2012, it received a lot of flak for this obvious tactic of blacklisting. Now the beer blog Beer Studs has published what they are calling the “The Cut Off”, which lists all the “impostor” craft beer brands that have been acquired by AB-InBev.

In May 2017, James Quincey, an insider, took over as CEO of The Coca-Cola Company. He has his work cut out for him. Not only will he be going to refranchise Coca-Cola’s vast network of bottlers in the US, which will reduce Coke to a branding and concentrates firm, the question for Mr Quincey is whether Coca-Cola can move beyond Coke. More and more governments see its sugar-laden products as a scourge.