Trade News

The 2020 Great American Beer Festival was held virtually this year due to COVID, but winners were named, and medals awarded nonetheless. The following Heidelberg supplier partners won medals for their outstanding brews at the 2020 GABF.

Gold Medal Winners
Avery Brewing Co., “Liliko’I Kepolo” – Fruit Wheat Beer
Blue Moon Brewing Co., “Moon Haze” – Juicy or Hazy Pale Ale
Golden Road Brewing, “Get Up Offa That Brown” – English Style Brown Ale

Bronze Medal Winners
Gravely Brewing Co., “Doc’s Dunkel” – German Style Wheat Beer
New Belgium Brewing Co., “Sour IPA” – American Style Sour Beer
Rogue Ales & Spirits, “Pumpkin Patch Ale” – Pumpkin Beer
Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. “1979 Stout” – American Style Black Ale or Stout

→ With more than 8,200 breweries in the United States, there are tens of thousands of different beers to choose from. But what about the time before the brewery explosion when there wasn’t a seemingly infinite selection of beers? Vine Pair named it’s 25 Most Important American Beers of all time.

Heidelberg partners with 14 of the suppliers and their beers on the list:

→ Michelle Wine Estates Chief Executive Officer Jim Mortenson retired on November 1. David Dearie has taken over as his successor.

 → The Napa Valley Vintner Association, which represents most of the region impacted by the Glass fire, reported that 80% of its wineries will be producing a vintage this year. The outlook in California is that the 2020 harvest is smaller, but it will still be high quality.

→ Anheuser-Busch will significantly scale back on its Super Bowl presence due to concerns with the on going COVID pandemic. AB won’t host parties or book high-end musical acts. It also won’t host its typical number of nearly 600 guests (a mix of sweepstakes winners, employees, wholesalers and other clients) and the 400 hotel rooms that go along with them.

→ Earnest Brew Works, supplier partner from Toledo has brewed a special blackberry sour beer called “Gales of November” that commemorates the 45^th anniversary of the sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald. In 1975, the ship sank in Lake Superior claiming all 29 of the Fitzgerald’s crew, including Captain, Ernest M. McSorley, who lived in Ottawa Hills, a Toledo suburb.

→ Mark Anthony Brands will construct a third new production facility to go along with the two facilities opened earlier this year in Arizona and New Jersey. The newest plant which will open this summer will be a $400 million, 1 million square-foot production facility in Columbia, South Carolina. Construction has begun, and White Claw Hard Seltzer and Mike’s Hard Lemonade are among the production lineup.