| FLASH NEWS |
| More Seltzers Cigar City Brewing announces the release of Cigar City Seltzer, a hand-crafted hard seltzer in four flavors inspired by Florida’s world-famous citrus: Florida Orange, Ruby Red Grapefruit, Meyer Lemonade and Key Lime. Variety 12-packs of Cigar City Seltzer will appear throughout the Southeast and select East Coast cities starting in February. California's 21st Amendment is releasing SOMA Hard Seltzer with a variety of fruits in a four pack. |
| Robot Deliveries TapRm became the first online beer platform in the U.S. to pilot a program of autonomous delivery with the use of robots. TapRm tested deliveries using wheeled robots with a suite of sensors for autonomous operation, in partnership with Axlehire and former incubator engineers from Google Area 120. The robot can carry up to 50 pounds (up to 36 beers), ideal for beer delivery, and travels on sidewalks at a maximum speed of 4.5 mpr.. |
| Feb. 2021 |
| QUICK HITS A new American Pale Lager has just been released by Oskar Blues Brewery. It's Oskar’s Lager (4.2% ABV), with 95 calories and 2.5 carbs per 12 oz. can, It is now available nationwide in 15-packs and 6-packs of 12 oz. cans. Most states allow at least some wineries to use a “direct-to-consumer” or “DTC” sales model. Half a dozen states also allow breweries to ship beer to its residents, while the vast majority let their citizens receive wine directly from both in- and out-of- state wineries but no beer in the mail whatsoever unless it comes from an authorized retailer (read: not a producer). Time to change that. ----------------- Bell's Brewery, Michigan's largest independent brewery known for classics such as the Two Hearted Ale and Hopslam that just released a new year-long beer. Called No, Yeah — in Midwestern, that means yes — this "easy drinking golden ale" is crisp, dry and clocks in at 4.5% alcohol by volume. .-------------------- Yuengling, the beloved East Coast brewery known as “America’s Oldest Brewery,” is finally coming to Texas making it the first Western state to get the 192-year-old beer brand outside of Yuengling’s 22-state East Coast domain. ------------------------- The number of legal drinking age adults who have visited on-premise establishments has remained stagnant at around 50% for several months, according to a report from Nielsen the market research firm, ------------------- Hard seltzer dollar sales topped $4.14 billion in 2020, increasing 160.4% compared to 2019, in all-outlet, plus convenience and liquor data Jan 1. 2021. |
Edited by Jim Attacap
| The NA Beer Fad Non-alcoholic beer is not new — O’Doul’s has been around since 1990 — but it’s having a renaissance right now, one that’s trickling down even into craft beer. People are looking for lighter, healthier, easier-to-drink beverages that won’t weigh them down or get in the way of an active, outdoorsy lifestyle.The Brewers Association sees the rise of non-alcoholic beer in its annual Nielsen Harris consumer survey. In 2020, 17 percent of craft beer drinkers said they were more interested in low-alcohol and non-alcoholic drinks than they were a few years ago, up from 14 percent last year. They’re also watching sales data. Over the last two years, non-alcoholic beer grew from 0.30 percent of beer sales by volume to 0.40 percent. (Those numbers may not tell the whole story, either, since they don’t include on-premise and direct- to-consumer sales.) That’s tiny compared to regular beer, yes, but with the U.S. beer market topping $116 billion, even a small fraction of sales still means big business. A special on-site alcohol-removing machine have been specially designed for craft breweries The machine, called “the Equalizer,” is the brainchild of ABV Technologies, a St. Paul, Minn., company that wanted to give small craft breweries an opportunity to compete with Big Beer in the non-alcoholic market — and with non-alcoholic beer that actually tastes good. (You can now buy non-alcoholic beers from all the big players: Budweiser, Coors, Heineken, Guinness, just to name a few.) Traditionally, brewers have used two overarching techniques for creating non-alcoholic beer. With one method, they essentially boil off the alcohol. With the other, they stop fermentation before the yeast can produce high amounts of alcohol. These methods tend to be inconsistent and they can really mess with the beer’s flavor. The ABV Technology machine creates a vacuum to extract the alcohol at a low temperature, which helps preserve the beer’s intended flavors. Beer goes in, non-alcoholic beer comes out. As an added bonus, the machine also turns the unwanted alcohol into unflavored hard seltzer, which breweries can then put their own spin on. |