Goose Island Bought By Anheuser-Busch For $38.8 Million

Anheuser-Busch announced Monday that it was spending nearly $40 million to buy Goose Island, one of the country's pre-eminent craft brewers, in a play to capitalize on the success of that market.

Goose Island's 312 and Honkers Ale are among the lines that established its prominence in Chicago's local market. And some Goose Island's specialty beers garnered the company national attention: the Bourbon County Brand Coffee Stout was rated the top beer of 2010 by BeerAdvocate, and RateBeer called Goose Island the tenth-best brewery in the world that year.

John Hall, the head of Goose Island, said that the company was quickly outgrowing its capacities, having to limit production of some of its most popular beers, and that the deal with Anheuser-Busch would help the company continue to expand. "This agreement helps us achieve our goals with an ideal partner who helped fuel our growth, appreciates our products and supports their success," Hall said, in a statement on the buyout.

Goose Island already uses Anheuser-Busch as its distribution partner, NBC Chicago reports. The corporate beer giant, which runs nearly half of the American beer industry with such brands as Budweiser, Busch and Michelob, bought the majority share in Fulton Street Brewery, owners of Goose Island, for $22.5 million. The remaining share, owned by the Craft Brewers Alliance, was purchased by AB for $16.3 million.

As the Wall Street Journal points out, craft brewing has been an exceptionally solid performer in an otherwise unexceptional beer market in recent years. Craft beer sales were up 11 percent last year, while the broader industry was down one percent.

Comments

[dannyd05]

01:05 PM on 04/04/2011

If you are in business, you are in it for the money. Period. I love it when I read all these Craft Brewer's talking about the quality of their beer vs. the big guys..All in an effort to create a following with those who appreciate a small batch brew..That is how they grow and position themselves..For what? To get big enough to make a lot of money with the grand prize of a big brewer to coming in and write them a check...Make them rich..It is and will continue to happen. It is called marketing..'Oh, we're not the big guy..Our beer is better"... People..The Big Brewers were small brewers once. Any small guy who claims he is not in it for the money and says he would never sell is lying to your face to keep his following. The only true craft brewer is the one who makes it with his friends or at his house and never tries to make a dime off it...

[Sixtracks]

11:36 AM on 03/30/2011

Goose Island, the new Anheiser Busch W H O R E.
There are plenty of other craft beers I'd rather choose.

[Aldyth]

10:42 AM on 03/29/2011

Sacrilege!

Sacrilege, I say!

[SalusPopuli]

10:16 AM on 03/29/2011

How long will it be before Goose Island IPA tastes like Bud Light?

[nfatt1]

09:17 AM on 03/29/2011

Any competitor to Milwaukee beers is welcome.

[DL3]

08:52 AM on 03/29/2011

Good for them. It's great to see a Chicago company make it. No matter what it is!

[bushguy]

06:31 AM on 03/29/2011

Wonderful.

[TMc73]

09:45 PM on 03/28/2011

STELLAAAA!!!!!!

Et Tu Goose Island?

Sad day for the small brewery industry.

To think that they had come so far only to sell to AB / InBev.

Why bother brewing at all?

[sloppybear16]

06:10 PM on 03/28/2011

I love Goose. I can only hope Busch keeps the integrity of the beers. Hopefully more people around the country and the globe will get enjoy some GI 312 soon

[firexbrat]

06:59 PM on 03/28/2011

Good luck with that. A-B is owned by a german conglomerate InBev. Goose Island is now a subsidiary of foreign corporation. I'd doubt GI stays anything close to its traditions. Brewing beer is massive amounts for distribution around the world compromises its integrity. Such was the desire for small, local, craft brewers like GI. Goose Island pretty much signed its craft brew status's death warrant if AB- InBev decides on a wider distribution.

[BushBites]

06:05 PM on 03/28/2011

"Chicago, this is St. Louis.

We decided that it would make much more financial sense for both of us if you were to start using our suppliers.

What's the quality?

Um....yeah....good quality......whatever."

[benji85]

05:42 PM on 03/28/2011

Well does anyone have any good suggestions on other local beer?

I can't bring myself to buy AB beer, and Yuengling isn't available in Chicago.

[coolmaiden]

06:02 PM on 03/28/2011

You can still buy GI, it will still be made here. Also: Half-Acre & Metropolitan. But only the Metropolitan Krankshaft. The Dynamo is not good.

[benji85]

09:30 PM on 03/28/2011

I know Goose Island is still going to be made here, but I stopped purchasing all AB products.

[cwilliamson32]

06:28 PM on 03/28/2011

I'd recommend Three Floyds out of Munster, IN. Their Moloko stout has to be one of the creamiest stouts I've ever drank and their Pride and Joy Ale is quite tasty as well.

[AJ Hoffman]

08:12 PM on 03/28/2011

I enthusiastically agree! Also try the Gumballhead!

[benji85]

09:32 PM on 03/28/2011

Thanks, I'll keep an eye out for them.

[P51MUSTANG]

05:14 PM on 03/28/2011

I wonder if you can get a virus from that site.

[Elwood Grobnik]

04:55 PM on 03/28/2011

Sad day. Beer is an agricultural product, it's very hard to maintain quality with mass production. Rather than finding a way to make more of their most popular beers, I'd rather they make more small runs of more kinds of beer. Not sure about the RateBeer thing, Goose Island is much better than Bud but isn't even the best craft brew in the Chicago area (Two Brothers, IMHO).

[Matt Hotz]

04:51 PM on 03/28/2011

I guess, this is typical of some aspects of Chicago. Your head gets to big and you sell your soul; blood, sweat and tears up to the highest bidder. I appreciate what Goose Island has done for some regards of raising awareness that LOCALLY OWNED AND BREWED, and pretty darn good beer that is regionally distributed is a good thing. I never bought into the whole Goose Island beer thing, so their product was never a beer that spoke out to me. That, they sold themselves up confirms why I rarely, if ever wanted to buy their product in the first place. But, for others. It gives the aspiring beer drinker more options than the Anheuser-Busch/Coors/Miller Lights and their bland entry level beer with its outsized advertising budget designed for the 21 - 34 year old mutton heads of American beer drinkers.

[Cole Phelps]

04:15 PM on 03/28/2011

What a sad day for craft brew. At 38 Million it seems pretty cheap in that they already have distribution to even remote areas like appalachian Ky. They already had a brand made for themselves and now, in my humble opinion, they do not. InBev will send this beer to hell. This is all because AB has forgotten how to brew real beer so they must now purchase it, so very sad. The largest beer manufacturer in the world can't even brew a single beer worth drinking, how very American.