A local craft brewery is on tap to be sold to the Canadian division of a multinational company.
Wild Rose Brewery is slated to be puchased by Ontario’s Sleeman Breweries, which is owned by Japan’s Sapporo Breweries.
Wild Rose shareholders are scheduled to vote on the takeover of the business that has been operating since 1996 in the coming weeks.
Don Tse, a local beer writer, says he believes the time is right for Wild Rose to sell.
“They’ve been running this business for 23 years through a lot of economic ups and downs and also a lot of consumer change in preferences,” said Tse. “The beer market has changed a lot over 23 years and if the owners are cashing out here, who’s to say that’s a bad thing for them to do.”
Tse suspects that Wild Rose Brewery’s offerings are unlikely to be overhauled under Sapporo’s ownership but he believes the brewery will be granted access to additional markets.
“Certainly one model is they just let Wild Rose continue running the way it has, just give them access to Sleeman’s economies of scale and lower prices for raw ingredients and access to their distribution network,” said Tse. “Of course, another model is that they could come in and make a lot of changes but I don’t think that is Sleeman’s history.”
Tse says Wild Rose’s approachable selection of beverages likely proved attractive to Sleeman’s.
