Dec 9, 2025
Pizza Port wants to be a staple of your Southern California grocery
run.
“I call it the Southern California grocery basket,” Pizza Port
director of sales Jill Olesh said on the latest episode of the
Brewbound Podcast. “It’s your chicken, your tortillas, your black
beans, your spinach and your 6-pack of Swami’s [IPA].”
Pizza Port is riding a wave of momentum as the 38th-largest craft
brewery by volume in 2024, growing 9% to 53,450 barrels of beer.
Olesh credited the connection the brewery has forged across
generations, as well as the value of the brewery’s flagship 16 oz.
can 6-pack format, which the company launched in
2013.
“Part of the magic recipe, the lightning in the bottle of Pizza
Port, is we’ve been so many things to so many people throughout
their lives and a lot of those people who were coming as kids are
now bringing their kids here,” she said.
In the conversation, Olesh discussed the pillars of Pizza Port’s
sales pitch – “consistency, quality, affordability, availability” –
as well as the mindset that carried her through the recent SoCal
distributor consolidation as Hand Family Companies bought and merged
Stone Distributing, Classic Beverage and Scout
Distributing into Sunset Distributing earlier this year and
why she’s optimistic for 2026.
Plus, hear the real-time reactions from the Brewbound team on
Anheuser-Busch InBev’s $490 million deal for 85% of party punch
maker BeatBox, as well as quick recaps on a proposed class-action
lawsuit against Boston Beer and how the night before Thanksgiving
busted this year.
Justin, Jess and Zoe also share their Spotify Wrapped results, with
some surprising – and not-so-surprising – results.