Elysian Brewing Company, who first declared their slogan to be “corporate beer sucks,” has been sold to Anheuser-Busch in an attempt to sell the local brew to a much larger audience.
According to Inquisitr, fans of the Washington-based brewery have declared the company corporate sellouts, as Anheuser-Busch Companies Inc. is an American brewing company with over $15 billion in revenue in 2011.
The Elysian company was founded in 1995 by trio Dick Cantwell, David Behler and Joe Bisacca.
Prior to the sale, the company was composed of a production facility in Seattle and four brewpubs. The local brewery has experimented and produced over 350 beers over the course of nearly two decades. NewsOxy reports that the brewery now produces more than 100,000 kegs of beer a year and is the fastest growing brewery in the state of Washington. The report went on to state that small brewers are consistently taking more and more market share from the mega-producers and instead of trying to beat them, the big beer companies are trying to buy them.
Anheuser-Busch was purchased by the Belgian-Brazilian brewing company Anheuser-Busch InBev in 2008 for $52 billion, The Seattle Times report. The report also indicated that Elysian had sold more than 50,000 barrels of beer in 2014 and that the company’s acquisition would be closing in the near future.
Anheuser-Busch’s purchase of Elysian is expected to close in the next three months. Terms were not disclosed, but the owners say the Elysian brand will stay the same.
Elysian’s head brewer and founder Mr. Cantwell stated in a press release that the company joined Anheuser in order to “bring that energy and commitment” in beer “to a larger audience.”
What do you think, are they corporate sellouts?
