Kirin buys into Brooklyn Brewery reads the headline. File this under, not super shocking acquisition news. Brooklyn Brewery has been expanding East for a while now. Plus they are looking forward to construction bills for their proposed Navy Yard complex hitting their mailboxes. A new stream of money was probably needed.
And give them credit for being smart about it. Get people amped about a new project and about brewing more in-house and then bring the news of the investment later. Then counter any aggrieved by keeping the investment below the Brewers Association threshold. Plus they went with a corporation but not the evil empire seeing that Lagunitas caught less hell by partnering with Heineken. Craft beer buyers seem to save their precious vitriol for SABInBevMinusMiller and no less about the big players in the foreign scene.
It is pretty clear that the Ottaway’s in charge are paying attention to how the beer fan community perceives announcements as opposed to other breweries who are tone-deaf in both their “breaking news” and responses.
Of course timing helped too. Brooklyn news was soon eclipsed by the layoffs at Stone and now most people, especially on the West Coast will probably never really get the information and thus still think of them as fully independent.