Longevity of U.S. craft breweries

Anchor, Anderson Valley and Goose Island sold. I'm sure others will follow. It seems Sierra Nevada will be passed down to Brian Grossman, while Tony McGee from Lagunitas and Greg Koch from Stone seem dedicated to the end. I think this will be a hard (and personal) business decision for some brewers/owners. I just hope that the people who inherit or buy craft breweries are passionate about the culture of the respective brewery and are not in it just for money.

 

Most will be sold, I'd wager. There might be a delay with some that have familial ownership but I doubt it will last if they are really successful.

 

While I personally do not consider Yuengling to be a craft brewery per se; it has been owned by the Yuengling family for 5 generations. Wikipedia reports:

“Richard Yuengling is grooming his daughters to continue the Yuengling tradition as the 6th generation of the brewing family.”

So, there is at least one example of a US brewery being family owned for a very long time.

Cheers!

 

"...how reasonable is it to think ownership of such breweries will be passed down from generation to generation within these new brewing "families"? Is it more likely, for example, that someone (a head brewer) will take over the reins of such places when the time comes? Or are (lots) more buyouts by the big boys in the works?"

Yes. Yes to all of the above options.

 

With close to a couple thousand of them in the U.S. I'd say all the possible scenarios will happen in some appreciable number.

 

Without a compelling reason to think breweries are radically different from other family owned businesses, it is possible to argue that the odds of the 1st generation family owned brewery staying in the family are not good. Only about 1/3 of all family owned businesses go successfuly to the second generation.

http://www.businessknowhow.com/money/nextgen.htm

 

The well run ones and the ones who create a great following have the possibility to be passed down or at least sold to the employees. But it is all about the almighty dollar. If you started something and the "big fish" can along and offered you something that would change your family forever, would you sell? Millions of dollars are hard to turn down when it is presented to you. Many people like to think that their favorite brewery would never sell out, but money talks. Breweries are in the business to make money, not make us happy.

But in reality, how many of these breweries are going to be around in five years, let alone three years. If you were not established when this boom began, it will be hard for you to break out among the competition. In Minnesota, we have dozens of new breweries opening. It is hard to think that all of these will be around in five years. Let alone all the ones that are now distributing in Minnesota.

 

Wouldn't be surprised to see a majority of them closed or sold. For it to be passed on requires too much for me to think a majority of them will do so.

1. They have to survive to be passed on. Hardly guaranteed in this industry
2. There has to be someone there who WANTS the brewery to begin with

And even if that 2nd generation takes over, there's no guarantee they'll make it either.

I think we're going to see more and more regional breweries/brewery markets like the old days but I'd think that the breweries that make up those regions will change over generationally.

We'll always see a high number of regional/craft/family owned breweries but the make up of that number will change over every generation or 2.