Welcome in, today is Tuesday, August eleventh, and we begin with Brewbound, on what wholesalers say they plan to cut next year. Fifty-seven point six percent of wholesalers say they plan to de-emphasize or reduce SKUs of regional craft beer. That finding comes from Tamarron Consulting's annual Brewer Partnership Compass, reported by Brewbound. The survey covers one hundred seventy wholesalers, and asks them about their relationships with leading suppliers and their plans for the coming year. That account frames regional and local craft as the segment most exposed at many distributors over the next twelve months. For brewers heading into next year's book, a majority of the wholesaler base signalling intent to thin the tail changes the negotiation before it opens, and it sets the terms on shelf space, SKU count and service level for anyone below the national tier. Note what the number is and what it is not. It is stated planning intent, per that account, not a completed delisting. What the Compass captures is posture inside the wholesaler house rather than depletions on the ground. And because Tamarron runs it every year, the read worth tracking is direction of travel across editions, not any single year's figure. Also today, Beyoncé has taken full ownership of SirDavis American Whisky, buying out LVMH's stake less than two years after launch. Storyboard eighteen reports LVMH confirmed the transaction on Monday, with financial terms undisclosed. That account traces the venture to twenty twenty-four with Moët Hennessy, and notes SirDavis was the division's first US spirits brand built from the ground up rather than acquired, which is what makes the unwind worth reading closely for anyone structuring a founder-plus-big-house launch. Citing Just Drinks, the same reporting says the company described the transaction as making SirDavis a woman-, family- and Black-owned business. Neither side has given a reason, per that reporting, which places the exit against LVMH's continuing restructuring of its wine and spirits arm amid softness in Champagne and Cognac. Industry reaction leans toward reading the buyout as a demand signal rather than an empowerment story, though some in the trade point to award wins and reported sales as evidence of traction. On the liquid, that account describes a mash bill of fifty-one percent rye and forty-nine percent malted barley, distilled by MGP in Indiana, finished and bottled in Texas, and retailing around eighty-nine dollars. Separately, Cutwater has grown one hundred four percent over the past twelve months, which AB InBev says makes it the fastest-growing brand in US alcohol. The Spirits Business reports the company sourced that to Circana data covering off-trade dollar sales for the twelve months to July nineteenth. AB InBev also claims Cutwater is the largest spirits-based cocktail brand in the country, more than four and a half times the size of its nearest competitor, with Mango Margarita the second biggest-selling spirits-based cocktail SKU in the US, per the same reporting. The framing there is the company's own. Industry reaction leans toward reading the run as deliberate counter-positioning, with some practitioners describing full-strength, spirits-forward RTDs as a contrarian bet against the moderation wave. Either way, growth at that rate is a shelf-set argument as much as a brand story, and it moves how buyers allocate cold box against the rest of the category. Now, a few more headlines moving the trade today. Brown-Forman shares fell more than two percent after Citi Research opened a ninety-day negative catalyst watch ahead of August twenty-sixth results, the Lexington Herald-Leader reports. Tilray will stop brewing at Terrapin's Athens, Georgia site from September twenty-fifth, shifting production to other facilities in its network, the company confirmed to Brewbound. The Financial Times reports Bud Light media spend fell fourteen percent to about forty-four million dollars this year through July, with Michelob Ultra now America's favourite beer. And finally, Becle is going direct in India through Proximo, appointing former Diageo executive Shweta Jain as managing director for India and South Asia, the Economic Times reports, citing people familiar with the matter.