Oscar Blues Buys Perrin Brewing in MI

This was a surprise. We spent a very long day at Perrin last June sorting entries for the second round of NHC. Some of the beers were very good, some I was not so impressed with. The guy who started it made a large fortune manufacturing sports wear. Did he make his small fortune, and it was time to get out?  :smiley: They had bought a Krones bottling line, but never used it as they did not have the brand identity to get shelf space. Kuhnhenn has that line now.

I read an article linked from a Denver newspaper a month or so ago, stating that buying smaller breweries was going to be Oskar Blues strategy for the near future - meant to post it and didn’t. Now that is a switch from the BMC buyouts :

http://blogs.denverpost.com/beer/2015/02/13/oskar-blues-looking-buying-smaller-brewers/14665/

The Oscar Blues strategy reminds me of a show on CNBC where a guy invests into struggling businesses and straightens them out.

I wonder what their winner:loser ratio will be.

Oskar Blues seems to have it under control. Since the day they opened in Brevard, NC they have constantly expanded. Last I checked to expand more they would need to add another building. For all I know they may have that under construction.

Wow!  The wife and I just made a journey up there last Saturday… enjoyed the restaurant over looking the bottleing line, good food and great beer!    Still had a bit to catch up to Founders and Bells after their remodels, but a great place to have a meal and a one stop beer journey.

Hope not much changes, except they take over more tap handles over a larger area.

I wonder what the bottling line they put in was? Last June we we unpacked the 2nd round NHC entries there, plenty of room, no bottling line. They had a top of the line Krones that they only did a test run on, and then sold it at a loss to Kuhnhenn who are expanding. Not a good return on that equipment.

I appologize…  I was using bottleing in a generic sense… (12 oz package vs kegs)  To be specific (and less misleading) It looked to be a canning line.  I was suprised by the small footprint (hailing from to the industrial automation world…it seemed more like a toy compared to jim beam and budwiser lines I have seen).  Looked like it had filling heads and a sealer…so I am pretty sure it was not just the “front end” of the mobile canning operation that visits so many michigan craft breweries.

Must be why they dumped the bottleing line.  If they were looking to start small package distribution, it is better to start out in the correct format rather than grow and switch.

Thanks,

More a case of hubris?