Alaskan Brewing Co. isn\u2019t selling out.<\/p>\n
It isn\u2019t closing down.<\/p>\n
It isn\u2019t moving to the Lower 48, changing its name or owners.<\/p>\n
In an interview Thursday, brewery founders Geoff and Marcy Larson said their plan is for the brewery to resemble another Juneau institution, the Annex Creek hydroelectric plant, which turns 100 years old next month.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to keep this here a hundred years \u2014 that\u2019s the goal,\u201d Marcy said.<\/p>\n
At the start of another Alaska Beer Week, restating that goal isn\u2019t PR puffery. In 2015, the United States passed a notable statistical hurdle: There are more than 4,200 craft breweries nationwide, the most in U.S. history. Until last year, the record hadn\u2019t budged since 1873, when 4,131 breweries operated. When Alaskan opened in December 1986, it was one of only 67 in the United States.<\/p>\n
Now, craft beer \u2014 which comes from smaller, independent breweries \u2014 makes up 11 percent of all beer sold nationwide. Most of the rest comes from four companies: Heineken, Carlsberg, Anheuser-Busch InBev, and SABMiller, which combined sell three-quarters of the beer in the United States.<\/p>\n
While all four remain profitable (and InBev is seeking to buy SABMiller), published sales figures indicate those four giants are seeing flat or declining sales in their biggest markets.<\/p>\n
That has them looking at craft beer, a growing sector.<\/p>\n
In five days in late December, InBev bought three prominent craft breweries, adding them to four others it previously acquired in 2015. InBev also owns a 32 percent share of Craft Brewers Alliance Inc., a company that owns the Kona (Hawaii), Goose Island (Chicago), Widmer (Portland) and Redhook (Washington) breweries.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a lot of breweries falling by the wayside and a lot of breweries getting bought out,\u201d Geoff said.<\/p>\n
He and Marcy each said Alaskan receives about a call per week from people interested \u2014 or who say they\u2019re interested \u2014 in buying the company or the brewery.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t ever return calls, we won\u2019t do anything,\u201d Geoff said. <\/p>\n
They refuse to hold meetings on the subject and normally won\u2019t even talk about it for the simple reason that if they ever even heard someone make a serious proposal, that would become a rumor or a story.<\/p>\n
Holding a bottle of Alaskan Amber, Geoff pointed to its label. \u201cI think the label says it all,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re from Alaska. \u2026 We\u2019re not going to relocate from Juneau at this stage. I don\u2019t see it.\u201d<\/p>\n
At a recent craft beer meeting in Aspen, Colorado, Geoff said he realized that \u201cwe\u2019re part of the old guard of our industry.\u201d He laughed, then continued: \u201cI guess we are old now.\u201d<\/p>\n
The couple that started the brewery \u2014 with the help of 88 investors \u2014 have no plans to retire anytime soon, but they do have a succession plan in place to make that 100-year goal possible.<\/p>\n
Three years ago, they began an employee stock ownership plan that allows employees to buy shares in the company. While Marcy and Geoff still own a majority of the company, employees now own 10 percent, and that share is rising.<\/p>\n
Alaskan Brewing itself is growing as well, \u201crapidly,\u201d the Larsons said.<\/p>\n
With office space at a premium in its Lemon Creek location, the brewery is now renting offices from the next-door City and Borough of Juneau public works building. A new variety-pack assembly line is manufacturing cartons for shipment across the United States.<\/p>\n
The newest seasonal beer, Hop Turn, is making its way across the country, and a jalapeno IPA is slated for release next month.<\/p>\n
Later this year, the brewery will celebrate its 30th anniversary, and worried drinkers can rest assured: That anniversary will be celebrated in Juneau.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Alaskan Brewing Co. isn\u2019t selling out. It isn\u2019t closing down. It isn\u2019t moving to the Lower 48, changing its name or owners. In an interview Thursday, brewery founders Geoff and Marcy Larson said their plan is for the brewery to resemble another Juneau institution, the Annex Creek hydroelectric plant, which turns 100 years old next […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":32223,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-32222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32222"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=32222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}