How to remain "craft" while still cashing out.

Sell to a big non-alcoholic beverage producer

That’s right. If you sell your brewery portfolio to a massive beverage producer that isn’t in the business of making alcoholic beverages, the Brewers Association will go out of their way to send a clarifying email reminding everyone that even though the new company has billions of dollars on their balance books, they still fall into the small, independent brewer definition.

If you thought all the craziness was going to end in 2021, guess again. Here’s a quote directly from the BA announcement email:

”Based on our current information, CANarchy meets the Brewers Association’s craft brewer definition under the ownership of Monster Energy as presently constituted. In this instance, Monster is not a beverage alcohol industry member, so this new ownership structure does not affect CANarchy's independence in regard to the beverage alcohol industry.”

I’m sorry, but I think that’s a load of crap. Tell that to your local brewery who barely scraped by during the pandemic that they’re now classified in the same breath as a $46 billion (with a “B”) company. The definition needs to be exclusive, so in the chance your private equity-held brewery sells for $330 million in cash, you can’t keep calling yourself a craft brewery. Monster Energy basically just bought the rights to call themselves “craft” and the BA just rolled over. It’s not a good look in my opinion.

What do you think?