Goose Island Sold To Anheuser Busch for $38.8 M

The online beer world is buzzing as, long time Chicago Craft Brewer, Goose Island has been purchased by InBev’s Anheuser Busch for $38.8 Million.

Here is an excerpt from Wall Street Journal Online. We will be bringing you our one of a kind perspective on this as we gather more info in the days to come. We aren’t surprised about this, but we will get more into that later. Cheers, TFP

Anheuser-Busch InBev NV’s U.S. unit agreed to buy fast-growing Chicago brewer Goose Island for $38.8 million, one of several moves by the company to ratchet up its investment in high-end beers.

The Budweiser maker has been seeking to capitalize on rising consumer demand for small-batch “craft” beers and other high-margin brews, amid tepid sales of mass-market lagers.

In addition to buying Goose Island, the company said it plans to increase by double-digit percentages this year its advertising spending on its Shock Top wheat ale, Belgian import Stella Artois, Landshark Lager and other specialty brews.

“We really needed to step up our efforts in the high end,” Dave Peacock, president of Anheuser’s U.S. unit, said in an interview Monday.

Goose Island Beer Co., founded in 1988, has become a popular name in Chicago and other parts of the Midwest with such labels as Honkers Ale, 312 Urban Wheat Ale and Matilda.

Craft beers like Goose Island’s represent just 5% of total U.S. beer-industry sales volume, but the category commands higher margins and its total volumes rose 11% last year, according to the Brewers Association, a Boulder, Colo., trade group.
Read the entire article by following this link. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471904576228713229259504.html

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