Who is the next brewery to be bought?

I don't doubt that someone said that to you, but I do doubt the offer was ever put forward, much less considered.

 

Two of Ken Grossman's kids, Sierra and Brian, are involved in the brewing company, and Grossman has made it clear he's passing the brewery on to the next generation.

 

Good point. It's clearly not taking a deal off the table, but I believe it does make it more difficult as you need the votes of more individuals to get it done vs a handful like a non-ESOP brewery.

 

Randy, that criterion makes sense if the existing AB brewers are set up properly to brew the craft beers that are purchased. The AB breweries are 'optimized' for the brewing of lager beers. Some of their breweries are brewing ales (Goose Island Ales): Baldwinsville, NY and Ft. Collins, CO. How readily their other breweries could be configured to brew non-lager beers is something I do not know.

Maybe @Peter_Wolfe will provide input here.

Cheers!

 

This is so true. I've been to the new Mill's River location and seen the love and devotion put into brewery detail, landscaping, just simply the whole lay out is gorgeous and it's easy to see the attention to detail. This place is made for time and generations, and I'll bet Ken Grossman's grandchildren will one day run the place. I have a good friend from Mill's River that did lots of the metal work, and he's a true artist. The place will blossom through the years!

 

There may not be any rush to configure the lager breweries given their prior and continuing investments in Baldwinsville.

http://www.beeradvocate.com/communi...or-craft-beer-production.344380/#post-4155219

 

rumors about Jim Koch selling Boston Beer

 

I would love to see the collective butthurt if Treehouse sold to Inbev.

 

Without getting too deep into the details, the lager (i.e. horizontal) breweries are not very good at making craft beers. We can do it, but it results in more raw material and beer loss than we would like.

We are investing in a number of breweries, not just Baldwinsville, in order to make them more effective at making beers with higher hopping rates (specifically, dry hopping) and additionally avoid the massive beer losses that are typical in the average craft brewery. To give you some perspective, the average craft brewery loses 12-15% of the total batch when making a really hoppy beer. A lot of this is just the beer left with the hops after dry hopping. This might be acceptable in a brewery making 6000 barrels a year, but it's not going to fly at the AB scale when a tank might have 8,000 pounds of dry hops.

There's a number of other tweaks to to increase the quality of hop aroma, etc. It's something I've been working on for a couple of years, and it's just now culminating in brewery designs.

 

Peter, thanks for that input. I was suspecting that was the case.

Cheers!

Jack

 

I could see that. I've never been too big a fan of Great Lakes. It's always bothered me (being in Michigan) that the name Great Lakes Brewing belongs to a company in a state that touches 1 of the Great Lakes (and most certainly the LEAST Great of the Lakes). This would be what would bother me most if ABInBev or other bought them out and continued to use the name...

 

Nah , the distro footprint needs to be a bit bigger I'd think. 21st maybe the others would shock me, wouldn't make much sense.

 

As long as their beer tastes the same I don't care who sells out. I'm not gonna criticize anyone for wanting to cash in.

 

If you looked at the part I bolded you'd see that I wasn't responding to whether you disliked a beer that I liked. It was more for the overall style bias and anti-mainstream attitude. There is nothing inherently wrong with producing some beers with mass market appeal in mind; it's all in how well they are made. That Helles was a damn fine beer, maintaining the essential character of the style while putting their own spin on it- something we need more of, not less.

It's that knee-jerk pushback against a brewer making themselves more well-rounded that's not sitting so well with me. The more homogenized craft beer landscape that would be the logical result flies in the face of what this has been about since the beginning.

Me too, and that's the heart of the problem as I see it.

 

I'd guess the newer popular contract brewers with heavy marketing and packaging like Sixpoint and 21st amendment would be prime candidates for buyouts. Not that I would judge someone to sell out to ensure their family's future well being - I think one should do what they feel is best for them. They don't support a ton of brewery workers so if their operations had to move to one of the big macro brewery factories - it wouldn't be a big stretch from their current plan.

 

8,000 pounds of dry hops in 1 tank. How large is that tank?

 

I have been hearing a rumor that Prairie may be eventually purchased by Choc. I certainly do not wish to spew nonsense all over this forum by saying this is happening, but I am curious if anyone else has heard this before? Quite different than your normal micro being acquired by macro as both breweries in this hypothetical transaction are micro.

I don't see this happening, but it does seem like the farm project that Prairie had plans to move to hasn't had any momentum lately

 

Integrity is a thing. That is all.

 

I could see them going after Troegs, they are expanding well. Ditto on the parking lot thing.

 

My math might be off, but that's got to be somewhere between 8,000 and 24,000 barrels in that tank, maybe less if they're doing more than one pound per barrel of dry hops. Are there even tanks that large?

 

Choc.?

 

Choc Beer Co. It has a somewhat "interesting" origin story.

Stan Hieronymus' Appellation Beer blog recently had more on the legendary brew:
http://appellationbeer.com/blog/an-indian-beer-story-too-good-to-be-true/

 

thanks

 

Ballast Point IPO?
http://craftbusinessdaily.com/publications_daily.php?id=3485

 

I could see why people think 21A might be the next shot. Just from hearing Sully talking on the BN he doesnt seem like he would go that way. We will just have to wait and see i guess.

 

I saw the tanks ~20 years ago back when Busch Garden did the brewery tour. The tanks are more of a "laying on the side" vs an up-in-the-air thing like you're used to, at least the tanks I remember were... and they are LONG.

 

If you watched the new Star Trek Movie with Chris Pine you have seen one of the Anheuser-Busch breweries since they shot footage there; to 'replicate' the engineering part of the Enterprise.

Some photographs here: http://brookstonbeerbulletin.com/star-treks-engineering-deck-brewery/

Cheers!

 

I didn't know...That's pretty cool though. Thanks!

I wonder if the brewery has that many blue and orange panels and lights, because I expected more reds and whites...

I see what you did there....

 

4400 barrels.

 

That's a pretty big tank, thanks.

 

Totally agree with you on this one. was going to post this, but wanted to scroll through the thread to see if someone had the same thoughts as me.

 

I've heard rumors that Revolution wants to entertain offers.

 

If that happens why would anyone want to buy Green Flash.

 

Great Divide or Ska or Left Hand wouldn't surprise me at all in Colorado but I don't know any of the principals so that is based totally on size and profile. Owners of all three may be the last people on earth to consider an offer, for all I know.

I wonder, in my original home state, Virginia, about Starr Hill. Also seems like the perfect size and profile, but again no knowledge of the principals and their reason for being in--and staying in--craft beer. Thought I remembered them as being in entertainment (DMB) and real estate development prior to the brewery but could be 100% wrong.

 

Those of you speculating on Great Lakes crack me up. You apparently know very little of the business philosophy of the Conway brothers. They are passionate about supporting the local community and being environmentally friendly, two concerns that would immediately be thrown under (or off) the bus if bought by Big Beer.

However, rumor has it Three Floyds is shopping for investors to provide the capital to rebuild from the fire...

 

Lagunitas

 

The Brew Kettle.

They're in an area of the country that AB is looking to pick someone up, just recently expanded production, and recently made some odd choices about distributorship that I think could hurt them enough to look for a boost in capital.

 

I agree 100% that Starr Hill would be a good target for acquisition from a size/profile perspective.

I wonder if you would receive a finders fee if you prompted this business deal!?!

Cheers!

 

Well that's a relief. You're right, I don't know that much about the Conway brothers' business philosophy. Thanks for explaining it in such a non-condescending way.

 

Well, it looked like they were going in that direction (in a distribution arrangement similar to the original Redhook and Widmer deals, minus AB owning a share company) but they apparently stepped back from the ledge and ended the distribution agreement a few years ago.

Although I imagine SH still uses some of those AB houses - that's the case in central Jersey where both Ritchie & Page and High Grade still list Starr Hill as their brand.