Three Floyds - War Pigs

You might want to Google "Three Floyds/War Pigs relationship" if you're really that interested. It's more complex than you probably think.

 

Well, they sell War Pigs USA merch and packaged beer from the FFF kiosk, so…that should tell you half the story.

 

I see their stuff at Meijers all the time. I just assumed it was some shared branding/distro thing.

 

Google, being an empty husk of it's former glorious self, actually isn't terribly helpful here. But after wasting more time on this than I should have, this is what I was able to piece together:

• The collaboration seems to have started out as a co-branding effort between FFF and Mikkeller, aimed at a combination smokehouse/brew pub called 'Warpigs' (note the small 'p') in Copenhagen, Denmark. Not sure what FFF contributed other than governance and brand cache, or if any FFF recipes made their way across the sea (looks like all of the brews served at the tap were brewed on premises).
• WarPigs (note spelling) USA seems to have started contract brewing in the US around 2017(?). At this point it was still branded as a FFF/Mikkeller collab. Initially, there seem to have been 3 flagship beers in the WP USA lineup - Lazurite, Salmon Pants, and Foggy Geezer.
• In late 2021, there seems to have been a divorce (or at least a trial separation) between FFF and Mikkeller, at least as it relates to the Copenhagen brewpub. This seems to have been precipitated over reports of harassment/abuse of employees at the brewpub, and maybe other rumors of malfeasance and general skeeviness related to Mikkeller.
• As of 2024, FFF seems to have completely taken over the WarPigs USA brand. The 3 flagship beers mentioned above still seem to be contract brewed, but FFF has been brewing other seasonal and periodic recipes at their expanded facilities in Muncie. The brewpub in Denmark stills apparently exists, but there is no mention of FFF on its website; nor does there seem to be any mention of Mikkeller anywere on the WP USA site (which is obviously created in the style/image of FFF). I found a few articles that suggest that one reason for the WP brand was for FFF to get around IN barrel capacity limits back in the teens, but I don't know if that's true or of it would still apply.

I hope that someone in the know can correct anything about this that is wrong, or fill in some of the details...

 

Update: consulting the Wayback machine (also apparently sliding into enshittification, sadly ), as of 10/15/2021 the warpigs.com site was still being advertised as a collaboration. However, on 11/21/2021, the homepage was changed to include the following text:

So it looks like split back in 2021 applied to both the Danish brewpub and the USA beer brand. I assume that this is when FFF took over the brand, if not the brewing.

 

That seems to be the gist. I think there was speculation about FFF doing the War Pigs partnership because at the time they were approaching the barrel limits for Indiana craft brewers at the time and maybe needed a new brewing avenue.

FFF sent a lot of extra DL and variant bottles to the Copenhagen brewpub. There was some sort of membership program with different ranks that granted different stuff. It’s a shame they never opened WarPigs stateside as they always had good looking one offs they made and bottles for sale.

There was a nice WarPigs fest at FFF one fall pre-pandemic.

The Mikkeler FFF divorce where Mikkeler took the brewpub and FFF took the US distro brand was due to the head of Mikkeler (whatever name I throw out will sound like something uttered from the Swedish Chef so I won’t even try) having some toxic workplace allegations so FFF wanted to distance themselves completely.

 

WarPigs had also been contract or tenant brewed in Wisconsin for most of its existence and shifted to FFF sometime during the end of or after the pandemic if I recall correctly.

 

One more update: Further digging reveals that the troubles at Mikkeller that led to the split were precipitated by abysmal working conditions at Mikkeller's expansion brewery in San Diego, not just at the Copenhagen brew pub.

The gist of the allegations seems to be that the Mikkeller executives were made aware of a pervasive problem of bullying and sexual harrassment at the San Diego facility as far back as 2017, and that they largely ignored the problem until a director in the US pushed the issue. Then in 2021 it came out that the Mikkeller brass got caught lying about when they first learned of the problem.

 

The other component of the Warpigs story (that I heard, this could be wrong) is that the brewpub in Humboldt was going to be a Warpigs brewpub not a FFF brewpub. It was going to mimic the Copenhagen location and be craft barbecue and Warpigs/FFF/Mikkeler beer.

 

Munster not Muncie, otherwise seems a good summary of events.

 

Minnesota, not Wisconsin. ✌️

 

They also contract brewed at Great Central in Chicago, at least when they first launched but I don't think they have been brewed there in several years now. Seems like most if not all is done in house at 3 Floyds now.

 

Yeah, they contract brewed @ Wisconsin Brewing Company in Verona WI for a period of time I believe.