We blame the industry for this… It used to be that when we wrapped up our Weekend Picks on Friday, we could coast through the weekend. There was little need to check in for updates – things were pretty much done. But clearly all that’s changed.

So here’s some of what’s happened in the world of craft beer while you were off enjoying yourselves.

Terrapin Amps Up (Athens, GA) – It appears that the Terrapin Beer World Domination Tour will continue in 2014. After expanding modestly in 2013, the company is now looking to expand distribution into multiple markets this year. In the first quarter, Terrapin will become available in the Baton Rouge and New Orleans areas of Louisiana and will start distribution into parts of West Virginia. They’ll also fill in markets in Maryland (becoming available statewide), and will begin looking at potential markets in Kentucky and Ohio.

Good News & Bad News (Leesburg, VA) – In spite of a difficult year (and a terrible 4^th quarter) for on-premise beer sales in 2013, GuestMetrics is reporting that American craft beer and cider both continued to post positive volume growth, once again taking share from Premium Light, Premium Regular, and Import beer throughout the course of the year. From a style standpoint, IPA continues to gain the most share (+1.2 points) along with cider (+0.5 points), and Belgian Wit Ale and Bitter Ales are also both up (+0.2 points) in share.

Blood Doping Rumors Continue to Plague The WTF! (Brussels) – Spokespersons for the World Tank-Diving Federation (WTF) continue to address rumors that nitro-doping is a widespread practice throughout the league, giving some divers an unfair advantage and “allowing for prolonged fermentation tank submersion times.” While the league has acknowledged that these practices may have taken place in the past, they reject that nitro-doping is now common practice amongst its divers and vociferously reject calls for league-wide testing. Calls for increased scrutiny come at an unfortunate time for the WTF, as they look to bring their wildly popular competitions to North America in 2015.

Comes The Crowler™ (Longmont, CO) – What Is a Crowler, you might ask? Well, according to our friends in Longmont, a Crowler is the newest innovation coming from the Oskar Blues Brewery taproom and their development partner Ball Corporation, the pioneers of the American craft beer-in-a-can movement. So what exactly is it? A one-use, recyclable 32 oz. can that is filled and seamed right at the brewery’s tasting room. Here’s how a Crowler works: Oskar Blues added a CO2 purge station to purge the cans before filling them, which helps assure that there is no beer-degrading oxygen added to the beer. After it’s filled, the lid is applied and placed onto the seamer and locked under pressure, ensuring growler-like freshness in a 32 oz. can.

Got something you think we should know? News or events coming up that you want us to hype? How about industry tips you want us to leak anonymously?

THEN E-MAIL US NOW AT:  rumormill@americancraftbeer.com and let us do your dirty work!