Beer News: Colorado Brewery Closures Escalate / Virgin Craft Beer Is Set To Sail

(Courtesy Virgin Craft Beer / Virgin Voyages)

The impact of the pandemic is still being felt in the beer industry and for the first time, more craft beer breweries are shutting down than opening up. We’ve that, “Words to Drink By” and more.

Virgin Craft Beer Is Set To Sail

Sir Richard Branson is a billionaire entrepreneur and the founder of the Virgin Group, a globally recognized brand. In 1970, Branson started Virgin as a mail-order record company, eventually signing artists like the Rolling Stones and the Sex Pistols. The Virgin Group has since expanded into many sectors, including travel, banking, health, music, telecommunications, and leisure.

And now Virgin has its own branded craft beer which is currently being contract brewed for them by Brewery Ommegang in Cooperstown, NY. Exclusively available on Virgin Voyages’ four luxury cruise ships, Virgin Craft Beer is described as a “classic English-Style tyle Pale Ale brewed with fresh, mountain-sourced water in upstate New York.”

Clocking in at 5.5% ABV Virgin Craft Beer is brewed with touch of CaraRed malt for an amber hue, complemented by Citra and Centennial hops, orange peel and grains of paradise.

Words to Drink By

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle” – Albert Einstein, German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity

Colorado Brewery Closures Escalate

The impact of the pandemic is still being felt in the beer industry and for the first time, more craft beer breweries are shutting down than opening up, according to the Boulder-based national trade organization, the Brewers Association.

Bart Watson: Photo © Brewers Association

“The pandemic obviously also had secondary ripples for the economy, for supply chains and it changed consumer patterns overall, Bart Watson, President and CEO of the Brewers Association told Fox Business. “We are seeing people certainly spend as much at bars and restaurants as they did before, but they are doing so in different ways – more to go and delivery.”

Even though Colorado has the fourth most breweries of any state, right behind Pennsylvania, New York, and California, it saw some of the highest number of closures last year, according to recent Brewer Association data.

“Some of the most challenged regions are some of the most developed,” Watson added, “like here in Colorado, the Pacific Northwest, the West Coast in general,”