Given the utter state the American craft beer industry is in these days, and its capital-intensive nature, it’s no surprise we’re seeing new inhabitants setting up shop in brewhouses that used to house another outfit. It’s part of the lifecycle for this maturing industry, as breweries with big plans that didn’t pan out downsize or shutter and try to recoup their real-estate investments (or leave their commercial landlord to find another lessee).
Longtime Brew York editor and international taproom connoisseur Chris O’Leary refers to these movers-in as “hermit crab breweries.” Despite the quirky term, the process isn’t always newsworthy in itself. Athletic Brewing Co.’s recently announced acquisition of Ballast Point’s gigantic San Diego plant, though, is a head-turner. Out with the old tenant, a proud brand that’s become synonymous with catastrophic corporate folly in the frothiest days of craft brewing’s bygone boom-times. In with the new tenant, a pioneer of the fast-growing, still-niche non-alcoholic craft beer market with tailwinds at its back.
Squint, and you can see a faintly foreboding symmetry in the deal. Ballast Point’s infamous woes — and specifically what the new crab in its 107,000-square-foot shell in Miramar can learn from them — were on my mind when Connecticut’s NA juggernaut finally confirmed its purchase last week, more than a month after it’d become a bit of an open secret in the industry. If they’re on Athletic co-founder and chief executive Bill Shufelt’s mind, though, he’s too tactful to say so on the record.
“[I]t’s just not
