Now AB InBev puts pot into tea

● The world’s biggest brewer will kick off its push into cannabis-infused beverages with a lineup of flavoured teas — lavender chamomile, vanilla rooibos and peach ginger green.

The “Everie” teas will contain 98% pure cannabidiol (CBD), the nonpsychotropic ingredient in cannabis, with only a trace — 0.05mg — of THC, the component that gets you high.

They will be sold through Fluent Beverages, a joint venture between the Canadian unit of Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev) and cannabis company Tilray.

The drinks will hit the shelves after cannabis edibles and beverages become legal in Canada next week. Nonalcoholic sparkling beverages will follow early in 2020, the company said.

“The products we’ll be launching through

Fluent are CBD only,” said Kyle Norrington, president of Labatt Breweries of Canada.

For now, AB InBev doesn’t plan to move into THC-focused beverages, and it won’t be selling the CBD drinks in the US, where cannabis remains illegal at the federal level.

The push by brewers into cannabis beverages is another way of diversifying amid declining beer sales. Consumers are opting for wines, spirits and ciders, and, increasingly, less alcohol.

The cannabis industry is counting on drinks and edibles to help it recover from a miserable year after the optimism surrounding Canadian legalisation in October 2018.

Cannabis stocks have slumped amid disappointing sales, regulatory breaches and a slow rollout of dried flower products. — Bloomberg