packaging

A strong off-premise retail strategy—including smart packaging decisions—is helping to keep Chicago’s Revolution Brewing afloat during the pandemic.

Drinkers are visiting less but spending more when they do. Package and store sales remain strong, while draft margins remain scant. Here we round up some recent data and analyses relevant to independent brewers.

The crunch on aluminum cans comes just when COVID-19 fears have made breweries more dependent than ever on packaged-beer sales. Relief is unlikely to arrive soon.

The times, they are a-changin’. Gone is the old startup mantra of “plan big for growth,” replaced by a lean “test the concept and grow with demand” philosophy. That's pushing equipment manufacturers toward innovative, scalable solutions.

Christian DeBenedetti once wrote about beer. Now he makes it—collecting wild yeast from bees and plums and using oak puncheons for primary fermentation. In Oregon’s Willamette Valley, the future of Wolves & People remains unwritten.

Stubborn idealism meets commercial reality at one of the country’s best-regarded mixed-fermentation breweries. But as the market continues to change, how will the brewery’s strategy change with it?

Hard seltzer continues to sparkle; cans are set to out-fill bottles; and brewers are betting high on low-strength, low-cal, low-carb.

Greater demand for cans, and wider varieties of beer and canning materials, are leading to greater potential for issues.

With more breweries than ever and crowded shelf space, getting precious off-premise real estate takes hard work. Once you get it, keeping that placement takes more of the same.

Some breweries are sharing their brands with food companies for mutual benefit.