Well by this time of day this is becoming old news, but hopefully some of you that live in caves and under rocks and only believe what you read on Beer and Whiskey Brothers will happy to hear that there is yet more good news in the craft beer world. The Craft Beer Alliance has announced their revenues for the second quarter of 2010, and they show strong performance in virtually every category or way you could look at money and financial performance.
Here is a small snapshot of what has happened in the second quarter of 2010 as compared to the same time last year:
- Operating profit increased by 14 percent
- Gross margin improved by three percentage points
- Total shipments increased by five percent to 170,900 barrels
- Year-to-date cash flow from operations grew 146 percent, driving a 22 percent reduction in total debt
- Favorable modification to CBA’s primary loan agreement was executed
I know that financial information is boring but it has a lot of impact on all of us who like to drink the products, or who may want to start a business based on craft beer some day. Basically what this means is that craft beer is:
- A good investment
- Stable during hard economic times, and thus should remain stable during good times
- A financial winner. This is particularly important for people needing small business loans etc.
- A growth industry. This means that we can look forward to continued growth and expansion of craft beer, bringing new brews out and allowing breweries to get larger and ship further (looking at you Oskar Blues).
So the news is good. I think I will celebrate tonight with a nice cold Avery Saison.
-Don
Beer & Whiskey Brothers 
Maybe the news is too good? Did you see the article in The Street indicating that some analysts are speculating a complete AB-InBev buyout of CBA?
http://bit.ly/dbIN0b
Lets hope its just speculation. And if it’s not, lets hope they don’t sell out. But if craft beer sales keep trending the way they are, it’s only inevitable that we start seeing more and bigger buyouts, takeovers and mergers in this industry. Love it or hate it, there’s still that adage, “If you can’t beat ’em, buy ’em.”
We’ll see Chad. I hope there isn’t too much of this, or if it does happen that it does so with an eye to quality, and not just making cuts in processes and corners and ultimately destroying the thing they are hoping to benefit from. I’m sure as craft beer continues its strong progression in the marketplace, it will get more and more businessey. Probably to its ultimate disbenefit.
yay for craft beer!
Nice try…you were 5001!
As I understand it, AB-InBev already had a stake in Redhook, circa 1994. It was supposed to be a distribution thing. Then 2007 comes along, and Widmer and Redhook find themselves in a merger, and Craft Brewers Alliance was born. At the time, I think Widmer had a minority stake in Goose Island. The Kona addition (wholly-owned subsidiary) was more recent, I believe less than a month ago.
From the looks of it, the executive structure already has some AB-Inbev folks… two, I think.
But I digress…
Good on them for their success. I don’t begrudge them that one bit. I just don’t really care for the beers they offer (as compared to others that are just as available), which is another issue completely. And what the lesson here is, that Don rightly points out, is that craft beer is a winner. It’s vibrant and strong. This is good news indeed.