Anheuser-Busch InBev added a new brewery to its portfolio in October, when it purchased the Bend, Oregon-based 10 Barrel Brewing. 10 Barrel’s co-founding partners, Chris Cox, Jeremy Cox and Garrett Wales, announced the sale via a video released on social media, in which they assured drinkers that the beer would not change, the brew team, led by brewmaster Jimmy Seifrit, would stay intact, and the brewery would remain based in Bend.
“For the past eight years, we’ve been brewing beer, drinking beer and having fun doing it,” says Jeremy Cox in a statement released by A-B InBev. “We are excited to stay focused on brewing cool beers, get our beers in more hands, and make the most of the operational and distribution expertise of Anheuser-Busch.”
The sale of the brewery, which has a brewery and brewpub in Bend, as well as a brewpub in Boise, ID, and one scheduled to open in Portland, OR, in early 2015, signals A-B InBev’s growing interest in craft breweries. 10 Barrel is A-B InBev’s third craft brewery acquisition, after it purchased Chicago’s Goose Island in 2011 and New York’s Blue Point Brewing in early 2014. It’s also a considerably smaller
brewery—10 Barrel expects to produce 40,000 barrels this year—but the brewery has grown rapidly in the past few years and has access to the robust Pacific Northwest beer market.
“It looks like A-B is developing its own version of a regional brand footprint strategy,” wrote Brewers Association director Paul Gatza in a blog post.