The Rare Barrel sells to Cellarmaker Brewing

FBarber · Nov 18, 2022

From Rare Barrel's Instagram:

Over the past six months, we’ve been exploring a sale of the brewery. Like many others, the financial toll of the pandemic hit us hard and we determined that the best way of preventing a closure would be to find a partner to take over The Rare Barrel.

Today we’re pleased to announce that we’ve reached a deal to sell to our friends at @cellarmakerbrewing, who will continue to produce and sell The Rare Barrel brand in addition to making their great beer in our facility.

For the past 10 years, we at TRB have had the great honor to work with so many terrific friends across this industry, a long list of wonderful employees and passionate customers. We thank you all from the bottom of our hearts for your support and kindness.

As part of the transition of The Rare Barrel brand to Cellarmaker we will need to close before they can officially take over. The exact date of that is still TBD but we will keep you updated. We anticipate many questions but please bear with us during this transition. More updates will come but for now we just wanted to say thank you for the years of support.

Stay sour.
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https://www.instagram.com/p/ClFNsHIPauO/?igshid=YzdkMWQ2MWU=

and from Cellarmaker's Instagram:

Good Afternoon Friends!
We are excited to announce that we are acquiring The Rare Barrel brand and facility in Berkeley, California. We're thrilled to double down on our East Bay presence alongside our upcoming Oakland location @cellarmaker.oakland slated to open in February of 2023. We love the energy and sense of community in the East Bay. We're honored to join many friends in the area, producing high quality beer for the greater Bay Area.

We've been close friends with the @therarebarrel crew since before their brand and ours launched in 2013 and have worked together closely throughout the past decade on various collaboration beers, traveled to events together and even celebrated our 5 year anniversaries together. It's been a privilege to consider them friends and colleagues. We will continue the Rare Barrel brand and product line in addition to using the brewery in their facility to provide an increased presence of Cellarmaker beer throughout the Bay. More Pale Ales. More Lagers. More Barrel Aged Barleywine!

In the most bittersweet way, our lease at our Howard Street location is coming to an end and we've been unable to reach any reasonable agreement with our landlord to move forward. In all honesty, we outgrew the Howard Street space a long time ago despite continuing operations there. We’ve been on the hunt for a larger location to grow the brand for some time, the TRB space in Berkeley is just what we need. The decision to close Howard Street is not something we took lightly and was incredibly difficult.

We sincerely appreciate each and every one of you that has visited us at our Howard Street location over the past 9 years. We will continue to operate the tasting room through the end of December and hope you'll join us for one (or three) final beers before we say goodbye to our original flagship location.

The House of Pizza in Bernal Heights is not going anywhere and will continue to operate, serving as our San Francisco location. Please continue to visit us there for our Detroit Style Square Pies and Cellarmaker beer.

The Cellarmaker Berkeley location will begin making beer for our brand once the license transfer is complete in a month or so. We intend to reopen the taproom at that location in the Spring. Currently we are focusing our team's energy on opening @cellarmaker.oakland.

Thank you for all of your support. We look forward to Cellarmaker’s next chapter @cellarmaker.berkeley

Sincerely,
Connor, Kelly and Tim
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https://www.instagram.com/p/ClFNyGQsBpb/

unlikelyspiderperson · Nov 18, 2022

Sounds like a best case outcome for the Rare Barrel brand. Maybe a chance for brewers in the Cellarmaker org to stretch their wings with the blended, barrel aged, mixed fermentation and hopefully they've got the intention to maintain some of the brand integrity of TRB. I will say that I found most stuff I had from rare barrel to be way to acidic, like puckery sour lemons acidic. It would be cool to see their concepts handled with a bit more balance.

QuakeAttack · Nov 18, 2022

Well, between COVID/economics and maturation of the craft beer industry, I expect that we will continue to see more consolidations/buyouts.

Plan to get to Howard St one more time before it closes at the end of December.

Tucquan · Nov 19, 2022

I've had some truly great beers at TRB and have taken some home back to Pittsburgh to share with family, where they were widely appreciated. Really top notch sours.

GoldenWort · Nov 22, 2022

As long as I still buy it here in PA, DE, and/or MD, I'm happy they found a way to keep it coming. Maybe I'll finally drink that Arrows of Neon that I keep putting behind all the newer ones I keep hiding it behind... (1st cut is the deepest)

The Rare Barrel sells to Cellarmaker Brewing

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The Rare Barrel sells to Cellarmaker Brewing

FBarber Grand High Pooh-Bah (6,989) Mar 5, 2016 Illinois Super Mod Pooh-Bah Society Trader

unlikelyspiderperson Grand Pooh-Bah (3,600) Mar 12, 2013 California Pooh-Bah Trader

QuakeAttack Pooh-Bah (1,877) Mar 19, 2012 California Pooh-Bah Society

Tucquan Grand Pooh-Bah (3,000) Oct 11, 2007 Pennsylvania Pooh-Bah Society Trader

GoldenWort Aspirant (298) Apr 17, 2009 Pennsylvania

FBarber Grand High Pooh-Bah (6,989) Mar 5, 2016 Illinois
Super Mod Pooh-Bah Society Trader

unlikelyspiderperson Grand Pooh-Bah (3,600) Mar 12, 2013 California
Pooh-Bah Trader

QuakeAttack Pooh-Bah (1,877) Mar 19, 2012 California
Pooh-Bah Society

Tucquan Grand Pooh-Bah (3,000) Oct 11, 2007 Pennsylvania
Pooh-Bah Society Trader