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This month in 2009, Bell's settled a brand transfer dispute with a local distrib. In Apr that yr, MI craft brewer Larry Bell sued to stop hometown distrib (Classic) from selling rights to his brands to local AB distrib (M&M). Claimed, among other things, that AB controlled M&M, that M&M lacked experience selling craft beer etc. Classic counterclaimed that Bell's withholding approval of M&M was "sham" and "unreasonable." Suits were settled and brands were headed to Kent Bev, which had Coors, lotsa smaller brands in two locations and was one of distribs Larry told Classic to contact early in Jan when he first denied approval of M&M. This month in 2011, Andy Ingram, owner/brewer of Four Peaks Brewery in Tempe, wrote letter in Arizona Republic urging craft community to leave judgmental opinions to the wine folks. As the "explosion of craft beers brought with it mind-numbing choices," craft beer mkt may appear "as confusing as the world of wine does to a novice," noted Andy. "Couple the glut of options with social media and the need of some people to be relevant," and you have an overflow of experts, he wrote. He advised to use wine industry as "cautionary tale," since often consumers are "intimidated" by amount of choice and fear looking foolish in eyes of wine experts. Folks curious about beer need "people to steer us toward new things without judging" and guides should "be open to all styles" and "ultimately leave the decision up to the drinker."This month in 2012, CBN shared a number of notable tidbits and updates out of Michigan, including a piece of the Founders story that explained just how rocky it got before the Grand Rapids brewery started making some of the most sought-after beers in America. In our spring feature on Founders Brewing that yr, CEO Mike Stevens shared his expectation that Founders would approach 80K bbls in 2012. Mike and prexy Dave Engbers subsequently scaled that back slightly to 74K, still an impressive growth trend over 2011's 41K bbls. And though the two had been open about the fact that times were tough for Founders before they decided to enlighten the beer-tasting public with more challenging brews, the two shared with mlive.com just how tough. The co was plagued by "admittedly poor financial management," including maxing out multiple credit cards, not making regular payments on bank loans - "we'd squirt them a little money and then skip two payments," Mike told the paper - rent, or even state excise taxes. In 2001, United Bank threatened to chain the brewery's doors if it didn't receive the $550K it was owed. Founders got a pep talk and a surprise donation from local businessman, the late Peter C. Cook, which kept the brewery open. Near bankruptcy led Mike and Dave to stop making "unremarkable" beers and instead become "laser-focused" on quality brews.This month in 2014, private equity firm TSG Consumer Partners confirmed it did indeed have a minority stake in Atlanta's SweetWater Brewing, as CBN had been hearing and reported previously. The brewery confirmed the investment with a note from founder Freddy Bensch. SweetWater "recently had some folks in our investor pool who were ready to start allocating funds towards their kids' college tuitions," so the co "began looking for ways to create liquidity for some of the old timers while also bringing on a new minority partner that could potentially add long-term value to our brewery," Freddy said in statement. The decision to go with TSG took "much soul searching," per Freddy, and lots of time getting to know the "likeminded people" at the firm, "who share our solid core values." Brewery operations "will remain unchanged whatsoever," he assured. This was the second recent announcement of TSG's investments in brewing companies as it was part of investor group that announced deal to buy Pabst, and TSG would later invest in BrewDog. In late 2020, SweetWater was sold to Tilray/Aphria for $300 mil.This month in 2015, the latest crowdfunding campaign from Scottish BrewDog outfit brought in &pound;10 mil (~$15 mil at time), breaking previous record of $6 mil for such equity campaigns, according to Eat Out Mag UK. This was co's 4th fundraising campaign and offered equity interest on CrowdCube site and 35K people took the brewer up on the offer. Some of that investment would head into the US too, as BrewDog built its new Columbus, OH brewery. Naturally, outspoken co-founders didn't pass up opportunity to comment on recent transactions: "As other craft breweries capitulate and hand their businesses to industrial brewing conglomerates, we will continue to invite the people who drink our beer to own a part of BrewDog, and involve them in our running of our company," James Watt wrote. "This world record for equity crowdfunding is a marker in the sand for beer fans, amidst so many recent black marks for the craft brewing industry." Co would go on to break that crowdfunding record several times over. Tho the company's been thru several waves of challenges in recent yrs.

Craft Throwbacks - Oct

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