Consolidation in the beer industry continues. Over the weekend it was announced that Sapporo Breweries of Japan will acquire Sleeman, Canada’s third-largest brewery, for $300 million.
It’s sad that yet another smaller brewer is being subsumed by yet another brewing giant, continuing a trend that isn’t showing any sign of abating. Is our future destined to be one of half-a-dozen enormous global megabrewers? Golly, I hope not. Of course, this is not a trend unique to beer.
One good thing about this purchase is that at least the Sleeman breweries should remain open and keep a goodly number of people employed. Had Molson Coors or Labatt been chosen it’s nearly certain that they would have consolidated their holdings.
Sleeman has been far from being a “small” brewery for some time now.
Yeah, they may be small in relation to Labatt/InBev, Molson/Coors, A-B, etc., but as you note, they are Canada’s third largest brewery. And is Sapporo really a “brewing giant”?
Anyway – I’m selfishly glad that Sapporo won out over Labatt & Molson simply because this outcome will likely have little to no effect on the quality of the beer being produced by Sleeman-owned Unibroue.
Well, yes, my point was that they’re not as big as the really big brewers out there. Perhaps “small” wasn’t the best characterization, though.