Contrary to an anonymously sourced report in Bloomberg News, contract brewer City Brewing is not for sale, according to a La Crosse Tribune story.
Bloomberg reported last week that City Brewing leadership had not reached a decision on whether or not to sell, but could go for as much as $1 billion.
“There is no truth to the article,” City CEO George Parke III told the La Crosse Tribune.
Rather, the company may hire an additional 200 employees at its La Crosse, Wisconsin-based production brewery, where it employs more than 600 people. City also has breweries in Latrobe, Pennsylvania (formerly the Latrobe Brewing Company’s facility), and Memphis, Tennessee (a former Schlitz brewery).
City and its clients have made considerable investments in its facilities this year. In the spring, Boston Beer, which uses City facilities to produce Truly Hard Seltzer, installed a canning line at City’s Memphis plant. Parke told the La Crosse Tribune City that the company has invested $30 million in a new canning line and $12 million in a new variety pack line in La Crosse.
Last November, Pabst Brewing Company announced a long-term agreement to brew the majority of its production volume at City plants by 2024. Pabst’s contract with City runs until 2040. In a twist on that story with unknown implications, earlier this month, Pabst closed a deal to acquire Molson Coors Beverage Company’s Irwindale, California brewery.
City’s three breweries are capable of producing nearly 9.5 million barrels of product annually. In addition to contract brewing, the company offers packaging (cans, bottles, half-barrel and one-sixth barrel kegs) and co-packing. The La Crosse facility produces “beers, teas, soft drinks, energy drinks and other new age beverages” and can brew 16 different products in 1,100-barrel batches daily in its twin stream brewhouse.
In addition to producing alcoholic beverages for Boston Beer and Pabst, City also brews for the Bronx Brewery and Duquesne Beer, according to the Bloomberg piece, which inaccurately listed City as the brewer of Guinness Blonde Lager in an earlier edition. Diageo now produces Guinness Blonde Lager at its Guinness Open Gate Brewery in Halethorpe, Maryland.