But what about the health of that national footprint through the A-B wholesaler network? Callers seemed really interested in that too…

Depletion growth and non-contract shipment growth were each 7 percent for the full year. That may look slightly soft compared to the depletion spike they had seen at the end of Q3, when CBA core brand depletions had grown 8.6% for the period ended Sept. 30 vs. 7.3% for the three quarters. But the company also predicted at that point that full-year depletion growth numbers would clock in between 5.5% – 6%…

“I agree with going into a mainstream store [and arranging to] build brands,” says Lizardville specialty beer store’s John Lane. “But when you’re doing a concept like we have [in Lizardville], it’s a much different guest that’s coming in here. If they’re a hophead, they want to go to that section. They know the brands. That’s where [arranging by style] hasn’t gone the way of wine. I think we’re just so much more regionalized. [Fans] really do know the brands.”

Shipyard is one of the most diversified craft breweries around. It has 8 Maine-based brew pubs with which to expand mindshare and gain direct consumer feedback. Its total family of brands includes those, as well as Sea Dog, Capt’n Eli’s Soda, and, of course, Shipyard. The brewery also has a series of seasonal beers that rivals its longstanding flagships’ volume. And that franchise is on the move.

The other big news is their plan to go national with distribution by the end of the year. “We’re working on the contracts right now,” says Tony, who is not towing a state-by-state plan, but focusing on making relationships with the right wholesalers. “Some breweries say, ‘we’re going to roll out Ohio,’ etc.; we’ve never done that. We kind of establish building our relationships. … It may not be the most sophisticated way to do it, but it’s the most grounded for us.”

New Belgium’s April-imminent Shift Pale Lager signals a couple of firsts: It’s the No. 3 craft brewery’s first 16 oz. can offering. It seems a big bet on the industry’s interest in novel session beers. And it is, to our knowledge, the first year-round brand launch they’ve put $1 million behind. We asked brewery spokesperson Bryan Simpson to break down the media investment, and how they expect it to pay off…

How is craft doing at the Irish pubs? We looked up Fado marketing chief John Piccirillo to ask how it’s trending at his 15-year-old pub chain started in Atlanta, now with locations from Seattle to Philadelphia…

Yesterday Bump Williams shared the new upscale beer segmentation and craft segmentation model he’s using to help his retailer customers prune the ever-growing crop of SKUs…

It’s a classic case of too much of a good thing. Sure, craft is up across all channels: As we reported last week from full-year SymphonyIRI numbers, craft achieved double-digit dollar change growth in 2011 for the sixth year in a row, up 15% in supers, 17% in drug, 21% in c-stores and 25% in census-tracked liquor stores…

We promised you top new packages and brands in supers last week, per SymphonyIRI’s Dan Wandel and his full-year 2011 Power Hour presentation…

Back to 2011 full year trends: You can probably roughly guess the top 15 craft brands based on dollars in total U.S. supers. More interesting are those in that list who also had the biggest jump in actual dollar sales last year. That would include Sierra Torpedo, which gained half a dollar share of craft; Sam Adams Variety Pack, which gained 0.1; New Belgium Ranger IPA, up 0.3 dollar share of craft; Kona Long Board Lager, which gained 0.2; and Shiner Bock, which despite being up almost $2 million in actual dollar sales change lost…

Craft was the biggest 2011 gainer of dollar shares in food, its most developed channel: Up 1.3 share points, it generated $118 mill more dollars. Super premium, led primarily on the strength of Blue Moon and Shock Top, also gained almost half a share point. Overall, the craft segment has doubled its share in this channel since 2005: At 5.4 share total dollars of beer sales to 10.8 at end of 2011.

Draft beer occasions are growing – from 42% in Q4 ’09 to 47% in Q2 ’11.

Crispin’s Joe Heron had the chance to characterize the growing American cider category after the much-festooned MillerCoors acquisition a few weeks ago…

The category is learning from craft. At last week’s Beer Summit, leaders from Heineken USA and A-B talked about what they’ve taken away from their smaller counterparts’ operations…