Lagunitas buys 20 percent stake in Michigan’s Short’s Brewery

It’s not just AB-InBev – Heineken is buying up craft brewers too, albeit indirectly through its subsidiary Lagunitas. In July 2017, Michigan’s Short’s Brewing Company sold a 20 percent stake to Lagunitas, which itself ranked sixth among US craft brewers in 2015 – the year it was part-sold to Heineken.

Short’s Brewing Co., which until last year used the slogan “Michigan only, Michigan forever,” announced on 26 July 2017 that Lagunitas had acquired a 19.99 percent stake in it. Although Lagunitas is nowadays 100 percent owned by Heineken, the size of the stake allows Short’s to remain a craft brewer in accordance with the Brewers Association’s statutes.

Short’s is one of Michigan’s ten biggest craft brewers. The brewery was founded by Joe Short in 2004, and the Elk Rapids production facility opened in 2009.

This is not the first time a Michigan brewery sold a substantial stake to a company outside Michigan. Founders Brewing Co. in Grand Rapids announced in 2014 its partnership with Spanish brewer Mahou San Miguel, which owns a 30 percent stake. Founders is no longer considered by the Brewers Association to be a craft brewery.

Perrin Brewing Co. in Comstock Park is now part of Colorado-based Oskar Blues, owned by private equity group Fireman Capital Partners. Fireman's investment allowed Oskar Blues to expand its brewing capacity across the country, and to buy Perrin and Florida’s Cigar City Brewing. Each brewery remains run by its local managers.

Under the Brewers Association’s guidelines, Oskar Blues remains a craft brewer because it is owned by a private equity firm, and not a Big Brewer.

Short’s insisted that this deal would allow the brewery, which produced 56,000 hl beer last year, to continue on its path and do right by its employees.

Lagunitas, through its Lagunitas US Holdings venture, has already made investments in California’s Moonlight Brewing, Texas’s Independence Brewing, and Southend Brewery & Smokehouse in Charleston, South Carolina.

Lagunitas is on track to make 1.2 million hl beer this year.