Sale of Asheville and Fort Collins breweries make waves
Another Asheville craft beer brewery has undergone an ownership change, but this time the sale was not met with outrage, as in the case of Wicked Weed, which was sold to AB-InBev in early May 2017.
A couple with entrepreneurial leanings agreed to purchase French Broad Brewing Co., it was reported on 1 June 2017.
Sarah and Paul Casey from Chapel Hill, 350 km to the west of Asheville, were named the new owners of the brewery.
Founded in 2001, French Broad Brewing is one of the oldest breweries in Asheville, North Carolina. It produced about 5,000 hl beer in 2015. But as the city has seen its number of breweries expand over the past decade, French Broad has struggled to keep its brand relevant. A plan to sell French Broad to the Asheville-based Thirsty Monk pub chain fell through.
The Caseys plan to renovate and expand the brewery’s existing taproom near Biltmore Village in Asheville, as well as produce more seasonal and one-off beers to match the demands and trends of current tastes.
“An outdated taproom and a lack of focus on seasonal beers have hurt the brewery in a crowded market”, Mr Casey reportedly said. “Taprooms have become destination points. We need to add capacity and have a reason for people to come there.”
Details of the deal were not disclosed, but the former owner and the management team at the brewery will be retained.
Asheville’s beer lovers will have been relieved to see that the sale of French Broad went smoothly and the brewery was saved. Yet, the same cannot be said for the sale of the Fort Collins Brewery, over in the Coloradoan beer town of Fort Collins, which is home to 21 breweries, including AB-InBev and New Belgium.
At the end of May 2017, the Canadian Red Truck Beer Company from Vancouver acquired Fort Collins Brewery (FCB) from owners Tom, Jan and Tina Peters. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Founded in 2005, Red Truck produced 23,000 hl beer in 2016.
To the previous owners’ great dismay, Red Truck plans to shut operations down in July in order to reopen early in the spring of 2018 under the Red Truck brand. Apparently, FBC’s owners had been under the impression that Red Truck would keep the FCB brand alive. FCB had turned down other bidders as they were solely interested in retaining the physical property and not the brand itself.
Fort Collins Brewery started in 1992 as H.C. Berger Brewery. The Peters family rebranded the operation in 2003 as a German lager house. In 2010 they opened the current brewery and restaurant and embarked on an expansion scheme which increased production capacity to 37,000 hl per year. However, FCB only produced 12,000 hl beer in each of the past two years as it struggled with a rebrand of its beers and restaurant.
