Here’s a quick overview of the 2019 cannabis beer landscape

Investorideas.com, an investor news resource covering hemp and cannabis stocks, just released a snapshot looking at how the craft beer industry and the CBD sector are joining forces to bring CBD infused beer to consumers. New Frontier Data estimates that overall domestic cannabis sales grew 6.7 percent in 2018, while alcohol sales grew at 5 percent year over year (source: bw166). It’s clear to see why the marrying of the two sectors is underway.

Craft beer and cannabis seem to be moving forward as more and more cannabis companies look for partnership agreements with public or private brewers to bring CBD-infused beers to market. This has come in many forms including Province Brands’ beer brewed directly from cannabis and hemp, or Michigan’s Founders Brewery which is working with CBD oil in their beers.

In October 2018, Molson Coors Canada, the Canadian business unit of Molson Coors Brewing Company, and HEXO Corp. announced the formation of their joint venture, Truss, led by former Molson Coors executive, Brett Vye, in the role of CEO. Since this news however, Hexo has been quiet on its CBD Beer venture and we will most likely have to wait until closer to October of this year, when Canada is expected to legalize infused beverages and edibles, to hear more news on this front.

American Premium Water Corp. may not be waiting until October to have products hit shelves, as they recently announced an agreement with Hanlons Brewery in England to produce beer infused with CBD using the company’s proprietary formulation. Testing will begin immediately on the combination of the company’s proprietary hydro-nano CBD formulation with Hanlon’s beer, with commercial sales to be determined at a later date.

“I am excited to announce that the company has entered to an agreement with Hanlons brewery in the UK,” said CEO of American Premium Water Ryan Fishoff. “This is a very exciting partnership that provides numerous possibilities for monetization, and brand recognition on the European continent. The liquor and beer industry have been very fascinated with the introduction of CBD into the market, and this partnership affords us the opportunity to step into the discussion with the larger players in the market. We’re going to begin experimenting with the process of combining beer and the CBD formulations immediately. The goal will be to have a product available for commercial sale as soon as possible. I will keep shareholders abreast when there are developments on bringing the product to market.”

According to Mordor Intelligence, the European beer market is estimated to be around $185 billion in size, which presents a huge opportunity for HIPH as the company prepares to enter into such a large market.

Sipp Industries Inc., a newcomer to the space and the first publicly traded company in America whose primary focus is the production and sales of hemp-infused beer is looking to the United States, having announced that it has submitted a new Cannabidiol (CBD) beer formula to the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB).

Sipp Industries’ CBD-infused beer formula has been under development since 2017 when the first test batch was produced and the company submitted its final version of this Hemp and CBD-infused craft beer recipe in February along with all of the required regulatory documentation, including sourcing data and laboratory testing.

Much like Hexo and Molson, we are still awaiting news from Tilray Inc., a global leader in cannabis research, cultivation, production and distribution, and Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV on their infused beverage program which was also announced late last year. That doesn’t mean the company has been silent, as Tilray recently announced the closing of a definitive agreement in which Tilray has acquired all of the issued and outstanding securities of FHF Holdings Ltd. (“Manitoba Harvest”) for an aggregate maximum purchase price of C$419 million.

By leveraging Manitoba Harvest’s established distribution network, Tilray plans to accelerate its expansion into United States and Canadian markets, where legal, for CBD products.

With so many beer/CBD product developments in the works, the big question now is “who will have their products ready for the next shift in legalization?” Bigger producers like Canopy and Constellation or Hexo and Molson may have a distribution edge but will their beers hold up against smaller craft brewers? Craft breweres have take significant market share from large producers over the past few decades, and we’ll have to wait to see if they can do it again with a new generation of brews.