Deschutes has just announced the hire of Jeff Billingsley as its new marketing director. Jeff, an 18-year beverage and beer industry vet…

Some of the most pertinent responses came in response to the question of craft’s biggest challenges, this year into next.

Oregon Brewers Guild executive director Brian Butenschoen was recently quoted in OregonLive.com as saying that craft beer has been the largest beer category for the last 20 months in the state, “a first in U.S. history – and Oregon continues to lead the country in the percentage of dollars spent on craft beer.”

Another West Coast brewer looks East. Green Flash founder Mike Hinkley told CBD they’ll build a brewery on the East Coast, expected to open for production by January 2015….

Austin, Texas-based Jester King is one of those very small but coveted craft breweries that’s made a lot of noise…

Golden Road co-founder Meg Gill tells CBD they’ve just hired Sierra Nevada’s former national accounts on-premise manager Brian Dewey, who had been at Sierra for a decade. He’ll assume the role of VP sales from Meg…

New Belgium Brewing has just announced that it is moving its Lips of Faith and Trip Series beers back to Columbia Distribution after a 3-year run with Click Wholesale Distributing in the Pacific Northwest.

Deschutes founder Gary Fish told CBD it’s “more about opportunity” than preference. “Clearly the red network has not always had easy access to independent brands. There’s plenty of opportunity there, and they certainly know how to execute,” Gary said.

While other outlets and even some craft producers are bracing for a possible retrenchment of craft growth, IBISWorld’s report on “Craft Beer Production in the US” most notably goes the other way. The executive summary is quite bullish over the segment’s next 5 years…

Memorial Day was the biggest of holidays for craft so far this year, at least in food outlets, with it having done 1.3 million case sales or roughly 122,000 more than last year for $44 million in dollar sales ($5 million more than last year) during the two-week holiday period to June 3. Super Bowl came next with, case sales of 1.1 million, per SymphonyIRI.

Alcohol sales at Four Points have risen slightly over the past few years. Moreover, Paige tells CBD they’ve seen beer sales increase by double-digits, and grow to a “much larger percentage of our beverage mix”: “We attribute the increase to both larger trends toward beer, particularly craft beers…

Sam tells us the distribution will be varied between mom and pops (“our pub for example”) regional specialties (“Murray’s Cheese in NYC”) and a few larger customers (“Whole Foods in some regions, for example”).

Last night, the AP ran a story proclaiming a package of comprehensive craft-friendly laws expected to be voted into law. No bill names were given, but the tax proposals seem to match up: measures would include tax credits to essentially restore for craft brewers the recently lost state exemption of 12 cents per gallon and New York City exemption of 14 cents per gallon.

“‘The good things is, we now have clarity from the Excise Division that homebrewed beers from unlicensed brewers are not legal at paid beer festivals,'” Schlafly’s Dan Kopman told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch yesterday. “‘The bad news, of course, is that this was a very cool part of Heritage Festival, and we may have to introduce a bill in the state legislature or else find another solution.'”

This weekend marked the Brewers Association’s fifth Savor beer and food pairings event. DC’s National Building Museum held 74 participant breweries (60 selected from a lottery of 160 total entrants, plus 14 event supporters) pouring 149 beers and representing 32 states for the event. More than half of those breweries were new…