American Craft Beer The Best Craft Beer, Breweries, Bars, Brewpubs, Beer Stores, And Restaurants Serving Serious Beer.
(Courtesy Tilray Brands)
The beer biz never sleeps at American Craft Beer. And here’s just some of what’s been happening while you were drinking your way through the weekend.
Cannabiz Company Funds Two SweetWater Brewing Bars at NFL Stadium
Tilray Brands, the global cannabis lifestyle company that owns SweetWater Brewing has announced that they will be opening two specially branded bars at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, home to the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta United Soccer.
With this new partnership, sports fans and concert goers can now enjoy SweetWater beers throughout the stadium and at the new flagship SweetWater bars located on levels 100 and 300.
This journey started when Aphria Inc. a Canadian pot-producer purchased SweetWater Brewing in 2020.
It was a $300 million transaction involving both stock and cash, which gave Aphria, a publically traded company, entry into the US market and the infrastructure to advance its cannabis business in the states as state laws evolved.
Just two weeks after closing on the acquisition of Atlanta’s Sweetwater Brewing, Aphria reached an agreement to merge with Tilray, a Canadian pharmaceutical and cannabis company forming the world’s largest cannabis company valued at $3.8 billion.
Since then Tilray has purchased Green Flash Brewing, Alpine Beer and Montauk Brewing, and they are spending heavily to grow the brands in the US as they await the expected legalization of cannabis in the US.
Words to Drink By
“If Anheuser-Busch was still family owned, someone would have been paying attention, regarding who was hired and what messages were sent… Because the brand is everything, you don’t screw with the brand.” – Bob Lefsetz, music Industry and media analyst on the Bud Light Trans controversy
JetBlue The first major US Airline to Serve Non-alcoholic Beer
Starting this month, JetBlue will offer the multi-award-winning Athletic Upside Dawn Golden on all its flights.
“We’re excited to take flight with JetBlue and allow flyers to relax at 35,000 feet with a great-tasting alternative to full-strength brews,” said Bill Shufelt, Athletic Brewing co-founder & CEO. “This is a huge milestone for Athletic and a key partnership for us in the travel industry.”
Launched in 2018, Athletic Brewing developed a proprietary brewing method to craft beer that doesn’t rely on any alcohol removal techniques and fully ferments its brews to be less than 0.5% ABV, which is the legal limit for non-alcoholic beer in the US.
Athletic Brewing is the second-largest non-alcoholic beer brand in the US, with dollar sales growing 94%. The Brewers Association ranked Athletic Brewing, which has breweries in Milford, CT and San Diego, CA, as the 13th biggest craft brewer in the United States today.
According to a recent survey, one-third of Americans are trying to consume less alcohol in 2023. At the same time, year-to-date dollar sales of non-alcoholic beer are up 34%. So clearly there’s a market for this.
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