Brewers Association moves Deschutes up one spot to seventh-largest craft brewer by sales.
BY JACOB PALMER | DIGITAL NEWS EDITOR
The Brewers Association released their annual list of the largest breweries — both craft and otherwise — Wednesday and four Oregon beermakers made the craft list.
Deschutes moved up one spot from eighth to seventh, the Bend Bulletin reports.
“Like many regional craft breweries, they’ve seen a lot of growth,” Watson said. “That’s pretty consistent across the top 50.”
Deschutes Brewery produced 337,094 taxable barrels of beer last year, said Michael LaLonde, brewery president and chief operating officer, Wednesday. That’s an increase of about 15,000 barrels over 2013 production, he said. Deschutes Brewery ranked as the nation’s sixth largest craft brewer in 2013. The association ranking means less to Deschutes Brewery than meeting the goals it sets for itself, LaLonde said. This year, that includes a new bottling line, product development and improving the taste of its beer, he said.
The association defines craft brewers as “those that make less than 6 million annually, have less than 25 percent ownership by an industry member other than a craft brewer and derive their flavors from traditional orinnovative ingredients and fermentation.”
The other Oregon brewers to make the top craft list are:
- 32 — Rogue Ales Brewery of Newport
- 33 — Full Sail Brewing Co., of Hood River
- 36 — Ninkasi Brewing Co., of Eugene
Oregon companies to make the top 50 overall list:
- 9 — Craft Brew Alliance of Portland
- 13 — Deschutes Brewery of Bend
- 38 — Rogue Ales
- 39 — Full Sail
- 42 — Ninkasi
One of the biggest stories in Oregon brewery news last year was 10 Barrel being acquired by AB Inbev, Budweiser’s parent company.
Terms of the sale weren’t released at the time, and Portland Business Journal reports it’s unlikely we’ll ever know them.
AB Inbev recently released its annual report for shareholders, a lengthy document that discusses its financial moves and strategies to help investors better understand how the company is doing. After scanning the report, along with official documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, searching for hints as to how much 10 Barrel’s owners may have taken home in the sale. Here’s what was found:
“InBev also acquired the Blue Point brewery (Long Island), 10 Barrel Brewing in the northwest of the United States and two wholesalers in Kentucky and Oregon. The acquired businesses had an immaterial impact on profit in 2014. The company is in the process of finalizing the allocation of the purchase price to the individual assets acquired and liabilities assumed in compliance with IFRS 3.”
So there you have it, AB Inbev is too large to feel obligated to report a small expenditure like the acquisition of 10 Barrel.
