This valuable international market is worth eyeing, but there’s obviously plenty going on in the U.S., too. Kona has easily led the way across CBA brands, with Widmer (-17%) and Redhook (-21.6%) down hard in IRI-tracked stores in the 52-week period that ended in mid-July. Kona's Kanaha Blonde Ale (128.3%) and Big Wave Golden Ale (25.9%) have been stars during this period, but so, too, have smaller companies who were recently brought on board.

In the last three years, Cisco (105%), Appalachian Mountain (147%), and Wynwood (311%) have seen their IRI sales go through the roof, thanks to production assistance at CBA facilities and distribution networks supported by Anheuser-Busch houses. The trio became part of CBA in October 2018 as part of a $45-million spend by the company, which furthered Craft Brew Alliance’s long-term goal of creating a geographically-diverse portfolio of breweries that embrace localized success as a centerpiece to growth—a hallmark of how to succeed in today’s beer industry. Given AB InBev’s increased attention to a brewpub model for its craft companies—Golden Road Brewing and 10 Barrel Brewing Company being key examples of multiple restaurant/taproom locations—the own-premise advantage of bringing on five brewpubs currently owned by CBA should be attractive.

Appalachian Mountain (North Carolina) and Wynwood (Florida) offer two particularly appealing locations and portfolios, as both are predicted to fly past record sales in IRI chain stores in 2019. Following CBA's recent quarterly earnings report, CEO Andy Thomas told Brewbound that Wynwood's La Rubia Blonde Ale could be its own "standalone brand" that's "born out of a Caribbean Hispanic culture" and can appeal to a growing segment of non-white drinkers. When distribution of the beer expands into New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Massachusetts this fall, it'll focus on courting Hispanic drinkers, a move the company feels was supported by the brand’s success in Puerto Rico. La Rubia has already shown more than modest growth in its sales—IRI tracked the beer selling about 1,100 BBLs of beer through the end of July—and the brand has almost doubled its sales year-to-year for the last three years.

If that wasn’t enough, CBA is planning to increase its output in the hard seltzer space, which could be a $1-billion category by year’s end. Omission is planning 90-calorie, gluten-removed seltzers, and Kona is aiming to release its own version in its home state of Hawaii this fall.

Kona’s success, along with the smaller, regional breweries brought on board last year, already gives CBA an interesting domestic portfolio—but that’s not all that’s worth considering. Craft Brew Alliance’s pH Experiment, a product incubator arm of the company, hopes to meet a goal of $25 million in revenue by 2025. That’s a modest sum for the likes of AB InBev, but pH’s output is what matters. Created to be nimble and tasked with offering quarterly releases of new, on-trend products, pH is beginning to accomplish what ZX Ventures’ stated goal once was—to find the Next Big Thing and be there from the start. Those marching orders have since changed for ZX, but pH has already released PRE Aperitivo Spritz and Pacer, a “low-proof seltzer” at 2% ABV, two entries into a continually growing and evolving “better-for-you” market.

What’s more, CBA, by way of pH Experiment, is testing these brands through Amazon Go stores in Washington State and distributing through its Fresh and Prime delivery programs. Given the rapidly shifting tier of distribution—not to mention the potential of Amazon being in the middle of breaking it apart—this relationship would seem to be particularly fruitful for a company that has already worked the system in the U.K. and Brazil to gain better traction among wholesalers and customers.