The latest from Golden Road, one of last year’s fastest-growing brewers: they’re +124% through Q1, with no new markets, per co-founder (with Tony Yanow) Meg Gill. This year will have marked a doubling, to 30,000 barrels, plus heavy investment in sales infrastructure to Capex, including a new canning line that will increase output from 30 to 180 cans/minute.

Dallas’s Andrews Distributing will start full-portfolio distribution of Garland, Texas’s fast-growing Lakewood Brewing Co. portfolio starting May 5.

Among standout presentations at CBC, the seminar on forecasting seasonals hit every big craft theme, from quality concerns to distributor relations and SKUmaggedon. Seasonals are only now the second-largest craft style, having been recently overtaken by IPAs, and account for a large chunk of supplier revenues.

From Steve Hindy’s well-timed New York Times Op-Ed [see CBD 04-01-2014 ] to anti-franchise law rhetoric at the Craft Brewers Conference opening session, some distributors said they’ve felt the heat at this year’s big show.

Craft Brewers Conference attendance will likely surpass 9,000 attendees, up 40%, by the week’s end. Brewers Association honchos took the stage at today’s general session, along with a couple guests, to set the tone.

We didn’t want you to miss a second of the Craft Wholesalers Symposium, which this year turns 10. Moderators paid reverence to the conference’s former headmaster Arlan Arnsten by untucking their shirts at the kickoff speech. It’s that kinda laid-back vibe in a big meeting room with lots of roundtables.

San Diego County’s Crest Beverage Company, part of Reyes Beverage Group, is getting a bevy of craft brands, including fast-growing, former local nano, Hess; local outfit Belching Beaver; and possibly even well-known, L.A.-based Golden Road.

In wake of all the concerns surrounding the FDA’s examination of brewers’ spent grain practices, the agency is set to propose an amended rule this summer.

Hard to believe that April 10th will mark 100 days since Duvel Moortgat USA closed the deal to buy Kansas City, Missouri-based Boulevard. How’ve they gone? By new COO Simon Thorpe’s standards, they’re about a month ahead of schedule.

Lagunitas has been all over papes print and digital lately, particularly as the newest BA top 50 craft breweries list placed them in the top five. They finished 2013 at more than 400,420 barrels, and are projecting roughly 640,420 for 2014.

Some of you may have seen Steve Hindy’s weekend Op-Ed from the New York Times, “Free Craft Beer!” where the Brooklyn Brewery founder argues that franchise laws are essentially outdated at best and hurtful to small brewers at worst.

The Brewers Association has just released its new annual list of the top 50 craft and overall brewing companies in the U.S., based on beer sales volume and the craft brewer definition in 2013. Of the top 50 overall brewing companies, 38 were small and independent craft brewing companies.

The latest brewer to announce expansion plans (at least in our inbox) is Kansas’s largest craft brewer, Tallgrass, which produced 16,000 barrels in 2013. At full capacity, the new brewery — a former call center near a regional airport on nine acres of land — will be capable of producing 100,000 barrels.

Tenth and Blake chief Tom Cardella took the stage to introduce highlights at the San Diego MillerCoors convention. While local will continue to be fashionable, “how many local breweries can you really have in Columbus?” he asked. Yet he believes craft beer will expand – “probably double within the next 5 years — based on the drinker, not the structure of the industry.”

We thought we’d catch up with VP sales and marketing Dustin Watts on the ever-growing Athens, Georgia brewery. “So far through February, we were up year to date about 44% in depletions, which is pretty wild,” said Dustin.