Sapporo Snaps Up Stone

A quick note. Late last night, Sapporo announced it was buying Stone Brewing. For those who have followed Stone in recent years, this is hardly shocking. San Diego’s grand old craft brewery got out over its skis after aggressive expansion that left it $464 million in the hole. Stone gambled on an ingenious and ultimately successful lawsuit, charging Keystone Light (Molson Coors), with trademark infringement. Unfortunately for the brewery, the judge awarded only $56 million in damages.

According to reports this morning, Sapporo acquired the brewery and its debt for $168 million. That seems about right. Stone’s production has, per the press release announcing the sale, dwindled to 180,000 barrels. The brewery has been in disarray for years, and during Covid entirely shifted its brand from IPAs to feature a Mexican lager. CEO Maria Stipp led that change and was seemingly hired to engineer a sale—as she had previously done for Lagunitas. I can only imagine the sighs of relief in Southern California. It’s been a rough half-decade.

Meanwhile, the Japanese brewery gets a beachhead in the US and will use it to double production, making Sapporo at Stone for the US market. In the press release, Sapporo effuses about Stone’s brand and loyal customers, typical for these announcements. Yet Stone is anything but a sure bet at this point. It will be interesting to see what they can do with it. From Stone’s perspective, this seems like a decent suitor—a beer company with few holdings who should be expected to focus on their new brand.

One could say a lot about this final chapter and perhaps I’ll do a post on it some day. One point is unavoidable, though. As a coda to one of the most important second-generation American craft breweries, this is a hell of an ending. No brewery railed more loudly against “fizzy yellow beer” or the giants controlling the beer industry than Stone, which spent the 90s telling drinkers “you’re not worthy!” For decades Stone’s identity was shaped around not just their opposition to big beer, but crowing about what iconoclasts they were. Founder Greg Koch regularly took shots at “fizzy yellow beer” and promised to remake the beer industry in Stone’s image. For the brewery to end up in the hands of a multinational beer company as a diminished brand selling Buenaveza lime-flavored Mexican lagers? Well, that’s certainly not how Greg Koch drew it up when he was selling Arrogant Bastard all those years ago.