Goose Shifts 312 to AB Plant
Third Goose brand to move production out of Chicago
Three months after being acquired by Anheuser-Busch, Goose Island Beer Co. announced last week that the fast growing 312 Urban Wheat Ale will be brewed at the upstate New York AB plant.
The 312 brand now accounts for about half of the breweries sales. It is the third Goose beer to leave its hometown; all of the brewery’s India pale ale and most of its Honker’s Ale are brewed at a Redhook brewing facility in Portsmouth, N.H.
The company has said they hope to return all Goose Island brewing to Chicago within the next three or four years by building a new Goose Island plant in the local area.
The classic tale of a brewery buying another just to get brands to fill out their own breweries’ sagging production.
As long as they keep the quality up, I don’t see an issue with the move at all. It’s not necessarily a bad thing and quite frankly, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that the brews that have moved may even be improved upon in their new digs.
This is going to happen more and more as brewers get acquired, enter into partnerships with the bigs, or grow themselves to become bigger brewers. If they are made well, the products are still “craft” no matter how big the plant is or how ubiquitous the brand becomes.
Quality beer enjoys a niche at the moment, but good beer is gradually becoming mainstream.
And that’s not a bad thing. 😀
True, but I refuse to buy beer when the end run, regardless of layers of paperwork and gray areas, is foreign ownership.
True, but I refuse to buy beer when the end run, regardless of layers of paperwork and gray areas, is foreign ownership.
Don’t do much beer traveling eh?
I’ve just heard that Goose Island IPA is being brewed again in Chicago.