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06 February 2015

And another craft brewer goes to AB-InBev

Remember the counting song “ten green bottles hanging on a wall”? It comes to mind as AB-InBev buys yet another U.S. craft brewer. The target this time is Elysian Brewery, a 50,000 barrel (58,000 hl) beer company from Seattle. The deal was announced on 23 January 2015, though no financial details were disclosed.

This transaction is AB-InBev’s third in the craft beer industry in merely one year. In November 2014 it bought 10 Barrel Brewing of Oregon, which followed the purchase of Blue Point on Long Island, New York, earlier in the year. It also bought Chicago’s Goose Island Beer Co. in 2011 and already owns a 30 percent stake in a Northwest group that produces Red Hook, Widmer and Kona beers.

What makes this deal special is that it involves a craft brewer from the state of Washington, which is considered the heartland of craft brewing in the United States. The state ranks number two in the U.S. for its number of breweries (over 250 in 2013). In terms of breweries per population it ranked 7th: one brewery per 27,775 inhabitants.

Elysian is among the oldest and most prestigious amongst craft beer lovers. It was founded in 1995. Anheuser-Busch and Elysian say the deal will bring the brewer’s popular beers — most notably Immortal IPA — to a larger audience. The deal, which includes Elysian’s brewery business and its four Seattle brewpubs, is expected to be closed by the end of the first quarter.

As happened before, the transaction led to all kinds of demeaning accusations on the bloggoshpere, not least because one of the owners of Elysian, Dick Cantwell, has been a long time driving force for the craft beer industry in Washington and across the country. He wrote the book "The Brewers Association’s Guide to Starting Your Own Brewery" and served on the Brewers’ Association board for years.

Countering the outcry from Elysian’s spurned lovers, a local Seattle media outfit felt it necessary to point out: “When a software startup is acquired by a larger tech company, it’s considered a big success story in the Seattle tech community. But when an independent brewery is acquired by a big beer company, it’s often thought of as a sellout.”

Double standards, or what?

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