The Seattle Times reports that Redhook Ale Brewery and Widmer Brother Brewing plan to start merger talks.
The Times’ story points out why this makes sense: “Redhook brews Widmer beer on the East Coast, and they share a sales and marketing operation in the West. More than a third of each company is owned by megabrewer Anheuser-Busch of St. Louis.”
Interestingly, the possible merger was revealed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing by Anheuser-Busch on Wednesday. The Anheuser-Busch filing says it anticipates Redhook would be “the surviving company in any transaction” with Widmer.
Redhook and Widmer considered a merger in 1996, Redhook founder Paul Shipman says in the story, but it “didn’t come together.”
“If you name breweries around the Pacific Northwest,” he says, “it wouldn’t take long before you named one that we had discussions with along the way.”
Sounds to me like Goose Island is fucked.