Firestone Walker Brewing Company announced yesterday that it will sell its Nectar Ales brand of beers to Total Beverage Solution (TBS), a beer, wine and spirits company based in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina.
“It’s a great brand and has a great lineage,” said Firestone Walker Brewing co-proprietor Adam Firestone. “We weren’t giving Nectar Ales the love that it needed. It needs its next chapter and I think it will have a really strong future.”
Dave Pardus, the CEO of TBS said the acquisition is part of an overall company strategy to physically own certain brands.
“We are trying to augment our agency and import relationships with owned equities,” he said. “This gives us some more revenue coming from a brand we actually own.”
Nectar Ales is the first beer acquisition TBS has made in its ten year history. The company also owns a minority state in Southampton Publick House and is the master importer for brands like Birra Moretti and Weihenstephan. In the craft channel, TBS is acts as the master distributor for Shipyard Brewing Company.
Pardus said the company will spend the first few months “wrapping their arms around Nectar Ales,” but will look to grow both production and distribution for the long term.
“We might enter one of two new markets before the end of the year and then look to add another three or four next year,” Pardus said. “Our portfolio is already strong on the east coast, so from that standpoint it would be a natural fit for us to start expanding there.”
An exact acquisition amount was not disclosed but both Pardus and Firestone confirmed that a three-year production agreement has been established with Firestone Walker Brewing. Pardus also confirmed that he will begin looking at “like-minded” production facilities on the east coast to augment the production coming out of Paso Robles, Calif. where Firestone Walker is headquartered.
First Beverage Group acted as an exclusive financial adviser to Firestone Walker in this transaction. Nectar Ales accounted for roughly 10,000 barrels of Firestone Walker’s 100,061 barrels in 2011.