If you haven’t kept up with what Anheuser-Busch InBev has been up to lately, then you’ve probably missed their purchases of several craft breweries. One by one, AB InBev is slowly buying out their largest competitors in the craft brewing industry. Considering that, it does beg the question: is Indiana’s 3 Floyds Brewing on the buy list?
AB InBev created their High-End Division and started acquiring craft breweries throughout the country. So far they’ve purchased seven breweries, with six of those purchases coming within the last year. Each brewery has been a large producer of beer, between 40k and 70k barrels per year, with Goose Island being the outlier with over 120k barrels.
In Indiana, only two breweries come to mind when you think about production on that scale: 3 Floyds and Sun King. I was unable to find production numbers for either brewery, but I’m confident they are each brewing around, if not more than, 30k barrels per year just based on their push to raise the Indiana production limit from 30k to 90k.
In a recent blog post, Scott Metzger of Freetail Brewing in San Antonio, TX. noted that 3 Floyds could be on AB InBev’s radar. This is based on their production size and being from one of several states that AB InBev has yet to acquire a brewery in.
“In three years time, Floyd says the expanded brewery in Munster, Ind. — complete with a German-made, robot-run “Porsche of bottling lines” — will nearly triple its production to 100,000 barrels a year…”
So we know 3 Floyds would be a prime target based on their current and anticipated production, but you could also argue Sun King could push their production that high. However, the biggest difference between 3 Floyds and Sun King is their distribution models. Sun King only distributes their beer within Indiana, and they recently started redistributing in parts of the state that had been cut off due to the original 30k barrel limit. 3 Floyds, on the other hand, distributes to four states other than Indiana: Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky, and Wisconsin.
Having that preset foothold in the Midwest, especially in Indiana, would make 3 Floyds desirable brewery for AB InBev. All of this is pure speculation, but as AB InBev continues to buy up their competition, the possibility of Indiana losing one of their best craft breweries will remain.
Steven
Wouldn’t surprise me if they sold out.
Trotter
Sold Out?!?!?! People are ridiculous with this “Sold Out” comment. Most people make the comment while working for a national or international corporation right now, and shop at Wal-Mart. It’s not “US Made products only” any longer, and ole Sam Walton was a business man who saw the times change during his lifetime.
While brewers love to make beer, the objective of a business is to make MONEY. While running a successful business if a bigger business comes in and offers you more than what you would expect to get for said business, you are saying you would not sell out? In my opinion at least 95% of the people that just said they wouldn’t, ARE LIARS!
I believe there are some people out there that would not sell their business, but the vast majority absolutely would.
So before you use the phrase “Sell Out” take a long and deep look inside yourself, then do it again when you are waiting in line for your allotment of Goose Island BCS next year!
Benton
Trotter, I agree with you 100%. I love how this post got me thinking about it tho. 3Floyds is better than that.