Wisconsin’s Sprecher Brewing Co. has acquired six soda brands from WIT Beverage Co., which it hopes will help drive its goal of national distribution of its full line of beers, sodas and seltzers.
The six new brands are Chicago-based lime soda Green River, Chicago-style WBC Craft Soda, Wisconsin-based Black Bear Soda, Oak Creek Barrel-Aged Root Beer, Caruso’s Italian-style Craft Soda and Claire Baie Specialty Beverages.
Sprecher, an early craft brewer that was founded in 1985 in Glendale, Wisconsin, became one of the first craft breweries to diversify into sodas. It has long been known for its root beer which is now within the top 10 of craft sodas nationally. It makes more of its sodas than all of its beer combined.
“What happened was Sprecher wants to be a national craft beverage company: beer, soda, seltzers, water, mixers, etc. We want to be craft, but we also want to be in all 50 states and internationally,” Sprecher Brewing CEO Sharad Chadha told the Milwaukee Business Journal. “And to grow, you cannot be a one-trick pony.”
Sprecher is currently distributed in 25 states.
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