SweetWater Brewery acquiring Green Flash Brewing/Alpine Beer Co.

They pour as half foam, but they don't explode. Some brews (Fantome beers are the worst culprit in my experience) explode out of the bottle and leave some significant portion of the contents on the floor, table, walls, and ceiling, and then pour as half foam.

 

Those two breweries are just two of many cases of what happens when # of options get so large.
With the massive explosion of breweries there was no way that some of the breweries like these would not get left behind and go from popular to after thought.

 

At least in the case of alpine, they just tried to grow too much too fast. If they were still the little spot in alpine producing their core beers and doing their thing they would still have a dedicated fan base (as evidenced by the constant lamenting on the pacific forum for their beers and the thrill with which socal folks rushed out to the Mcilhennys new brewery.

Not every brewery can successfully scale up to regional/national production. Unfortunately it seems a rare owner who can acknowledge that fact

 

It's on the market.
Unprecedented Opportunity For Green Flash’s 100k BBL Turnkey San Diego Brewery ! Now accepting bids

 

GF paid $3 mil for Alpine so this seems about right

 

The equipment is top notch but the building needs a lot of work

 

What happens to Latitude 33 brewing in this deal? I think they were 100% contract brewed at GF the past 2+ years or so, perhaps because they are not part of the GF brand it doesn't make this article and they just have to find a new brewery to contract with?

 

That's usually the deal - sometimes when the entire company (brewery + brands) is purchased, the new purchaser takes over the contract but it's probably all part of the overall deal. A new purchaser might want or needs the contract to keep production nearer to capacity.

Thats how Boston beer wound up brewing Mackeson and Whitbread after BBC bought the Hudepohl-Schoenling brewery and why Miller contract-brewed Samuel Adams after Miller and Pabst bought breweries and brands from Heileman/Stroh, which had been brewing some SA production.

 

The Alpine Exponential Hoppiness I had in 2012 was exceptional. After all this time, it is still in my top five beers out of 2,525 ratings.