Q&A: Harpoon teams with Brewers Guild to help diversify Mass beer industry wbjournal.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from wbjournal.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
by afampov · April 6, 2021
March 23, 2021
SPRINGFIELD For anyone interested in cold, tasty beer, here are some sobering statistics:
Out of some 8,000 breweries in the United States, only 60, or less than 1 percent, are black-owned businesses. In Massachusetts, a virtual hopbed of craft beer with more than 200 breweries, only about a half dozen are black-owned. One of them is White Lion Brewery in Springfield.
“The fabric of the craft beer trade doesn’t mirror the fabric of the communities we work, play and live in,” says Ray Berry, White Lion’s owner and founder, who sits on the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee of the Massachusetts Brewers Guild.
Matthew Tota
That didn’t take long.
Fewer than 80 days after breweries won the right to cut ties with a distributor without having to wage a protracted legal battle, a distributor has called the new law unconstitutional and wants to fight a protracted legal battle.
Holliston wholesaler Atlantic Beverage Distributors has tried to deny Framingham brewer Jack’s Abby’s efforts to terminate its Massachusetts distribution agreement and buy back control of its brand by filing a lawsuit with the state’s Alcohol Beverages Control Commission.
Jack’s Abby represents the first high-profile brewer to invoke the new law, and this case will test the strength of the historic truce between brewers and distributors.
The Next Draft: Capacity limit wiped, but breweries still pining for patio season worcestermag.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from worcestermag.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
For Massachusetts breweries, Gov. Charlie Baker’s reopening timeline won’t help much
Updated Mar 02, 2021;
By Jessica Bartlett | Boston Business Journal
Businesses throughout the state may be able to bring in more customers as of Monday, and later this month up to 100 people may be allowed at private events, but for local breweries and taprooms, profits will continue to be hard to come by.
Massachusetts brewery owners say the latest slackening of economic restrictions is incremental at best, and the rules that remain in place put so much pressure on profitability, some aren’t planning to reopen their taprooms at all.