NEWS

Today, December 20th, 2017, marked the passing of some of the largest tax legislation in the last thirty years.  While this huge bill covered a wide range of tax reform, included in the new set of laws was the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act, which effectively cut federal excise tax in half for small brewers.  Currently, the federal tax rate for malt beverages is $7 per brewer’s barrel (bbl) for the first 60,000 bbls produced by breweries that make less than 2 million bbls per year (long explanation, right?).  Once singed into law by the president, this act will reduce that tax to $3.50/bbl under the same conditions (starting January 1, 2018).

This is a huge win for the Brewers Association, the trade organization that represents over 4,000 members made up of small, independent American craft brewers.  By their estimation, this will generate $142 million dollars in annual savings for craft breweries.  That’s a pretty big number!  We just hope that means there’s that much more tasty beer to go around.

For more details, check out what the Brewers Association is saying about it.

AB/InBev just announced yesterday the launch of a new initiative for the breweries that fall under The High End division of the company:  Elevate.

While the overall goal of Elevate is to promote a better future for the beer industry as a whole, here’s a snapshot of what they hope to accomplish with Elevate in 2018:

• All of our beers will shift to “best consumed by” date coding so consumers can easily identify when their beer will taste the freshest.
• Each craft partner will receive solar panels to help power their facilities and by 2020, the craft partners will shift to 100% solar and wind renewable electricity while reducing water usage by 20%.
• Our craft partners will collectively give back $2 million to local community organizations of their choice.
• We will Elevate our education programs and help teach our industry about the importance of proper glassware and presentation, and the huge potential of beer + food experiences to drive growth.
• Each craft partner will host open-door quality assurance and safety seminars for craft breweries in our communities to make our industry safer and better.

We’re pretty excited to see this develop.  For more information, click the link above to check out the Elevate website.