I heard a story (rumor) today.

Michigan Brewery shut its doors a few months ago. I liked the place and beer, but I just heard that Miller bought up all the equipment and recipes ( maybe even Kid Rocks Bad Ass)..i don't know.

It was pretty shady on MB's part i think.

Anyway, can someone confirm this? My thoughts are this : if Miller bought MB recipes, that would mean that Miller just doesn't want anyone else to have them seeing how I just cant see Miller ever wanting to make any of it.

Can you explain the shady part?

Airborneguy said:

Can you explain the shady part?

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Shady as in why Michigan Brewery closed. A lot of debt, not paying bills but making a lot of money. ( rumor) not as in Miller buying the recipes.

I dont know squat about brewing companies, or if this is just common practice. Thats why I'm asking

http://www.mlive.com/lansing-news/index.ssf/2012/07/michigan_brewing_company_brand.html

Story from over a month ago confirms that MillerCoors bought their equipment to maybe use in their Tenth and Blake beers (like Blue Moon). Kid Rock's beer was not involved, and they said they didn't know what they were going to do with the rights.

Seems straightforward. Equipment for sale, company buys equipment.

Kid Rock owns his beer. He was having MBC contract brew it for him. Also Celis Brands were purchased by the Celis family prior to the auction, so they once again own the brand name.

Miller just wanted the equipment for expanding it's own craft line of beers.

shakey_99 said:

Shady as in why Michigan Brewery closed. A lot of debt, not paying bills but making a lot of money. ( rumor) not as in Miller buying the recipes.

I dont know squat about brewing companies, or if this is just common practice. Thats why I'm asking

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So you have seen audited financials of Michigan Brewing? Can you post a link to those?

There was a thread on here earlier I had seen (Something like "Michigan Brewing Sucks!" or something) where several people claiming to be stockholders in the company expressed extreme dissatisfaction with the management. There were never investor meetings and the guy running it was fudging the books and impossible to get ahold of.

riverfrontbrewer said:

So you have seen audited financials of Michigan Brewing? Can you post a link to those?

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Re read my post, as I clearly state it as a rumor. Because I have no facts.

It's old news, and there's nothing shady about one brewery buying another brewery's stuff (including brand names and recipes) when they fold....It's called business.

The other part of this is the the family of Pierre Celis, the man that brought back Hoegaarden and created Celis white (brewed here as well) now have it back in the family. Family brings Celis brewery back to Austin.

So is it ok for Celis to do it, but not miller because miller/coors is in your mind "the evil empire?"

It is sad that MB closed, but the rest of it is just the way things are. And more than likely we'll see Kid Rocks beer and some of MB's other line showing up in one form or another. Maybe even with A LARGER distribution.

Here's the story on the sale.

July 3, 2012 at 1:00 am
Assets of Michigan Brewing Co. sold

By Karl Henkel
The Detroit News
1 Comments

The assets of the former brewer of Kid Rock's Badass Beer have been acquired through auction by MillerCoors.

According to beer-insider website Beer Pulse, the Chicago-based joint venture acquired the equipment and brand trademarks of Michigan Brewing Co. The sale does not include Kid Rock's brand, which was made at the Webberville-based brewery.

"We bought some of the assets of the Michigan Brewing Co. at auction with the primary intention of acquiring their brewery equipment, which is in excellent condition," MillerCoors spokesman Peter Marino told Beer Pulse.

Michigan Brewing Co.'s brands included Michigan Nut Brown Ale, High Seas India Pale Ale and Screamin' Pumpkin Spiced Ale.

MillerCoors said the "rapid expansion" of its own Tenth and Blake Beer Co. brands, a craft-and-import division, could signal an opportunity to capitalize on its newly acquired assets.

"We have decided an asset purchase would provide us with added small-batch flexibility moving forward," the company said.

"We haven't decided what, if anything, we might do with the brands at this point."

MillerCoors did not purchase the 76,000-square-foot Webberville brewing facility, located east of Lansing.

An on-site restaurant drew customers in recent years to Michigan Brewing Co. Its craft beers won medals at the Great American Beer Festival. But founder Bobby Mason was evicted in April following foreclosure on the brewery.

Kid Rock's camp last month said it was looking for a new brewer for Badass Beer, but conceded that could take beyond summer.

From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120703/BIZ/207030314#ixzz23ctDydij

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Revvy said:

It's old news, and there's nothing shady about one brewery buying another brewery's stuff (including brand names and recipes) when they fold....It's called business.

The other part of this is the the family of Pierre Celis, the man that brought back Hoegaarden and created Celis white (brewed here as well) now have it back in the family. Family brings Celis brewery back to Austin.

So is it ok for Celis to do it, but not miller because miller/coors is in your mind "the evil empire?"

It is sad that MB closed, but the rest of it is just the way things are. And more than likely we'll see Kid Rocks beer and some of MB's other line showing up in one form or another. Maybe even with A LARGER distribution.

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Ok, i can see this having the possibility of this thread spinning out of control and making a debate out of nothing. All my question is/ was is that if its common practice for major brewing companies to buy the recipes of micro's. Nothing more or less.

Im sorry if my post is confusing.

well, it's been happening at least since 1896:

Notice one unusual asset in there? Patent rights. I know what they mean. It's Maclay's patent for Oat Malt Stout. I notice that no value is attributed to it. Was it really worth anything? Probably. For such a modestly-sized brewery, Maclay made quite an impact with their Oat Malt Stout, which they enthusiastically advertised.

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http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2012/08/maclay-goes-public.html

motobrewer said:

well, it's been happening at least since 1896:

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2012/08/maclay-goes-public.html

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Thank you.

shakey_99 said:

Ok, i can see this having the possibility of this thread spinning out of control and making a debate out of nothing. All my question is/ was is that if its common practice for major brewing companies to buy the recipes of micro's. Nothing more or less.

Im sorry if my post is confusing.

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One thing to realize is that the designation Micro, or Macro or Craft really has only to do with barrel size of a brewery, and little else. In the "real world" of brewing it's not really an "Us Vs Them" as much as many "beer snobs" or bmc haters want to naively think.

People who work in the breweries are usually members of the same brewer's organiziations, managment and lobbyists from big and small breweries sit on the same trade organizations and policy and government advisory boards.

There was a guy on here a few years back that was so incensed to find out that members of some Craft Breweries sat on the same lobby organization with folks from Anheuser–Busch....But that's just the reality, they may be "enemies" in the market place, but often not in the boardrooms.....

It's not that it's "common practice for major brewing companies to buy the recipes of micro's." It is that it's "Common practice to try to buy each other out or merge no matter the size."

It's really no different from Inbev buying Anheuser–Busch, EXCEPT the Michigan Brewing Company had folded.

But yeah companies, brewing and otherwise, buy each other out all the time.

Miller, is now SAB Miller.... There's a couple of larger Micros/Brewpubs, that bought out a couple smaller ones in Michigan when they folded a few years ago.

Often it is equipment over brands that they go for in many cases. And sometimes it's after recipes. Some products like BAD ASS will probably be brewed, because of it's name recognition and market, but also some might be killed.....but that's no different than let's say a Movie Studio optioning a script or a property not to produce it, but because they already have a similar one in production already and don't want the competition.

Doesn't make it any better, and Revvy you know my views on this argument, but I have to disagree about the brewing industry not having an 'us vs. them' attitude. I've been on tons of tours and visits, and I frequently hear craft brewers making negative comments about the big guys. Much of the attitudes you see here seem to be prevalent amongst the craft 'pros'. The ones who don't hold that same attitude are mostly those who actually came up through the brewing ranks with the big boys, not the modern path of enthusiast-homebrewer-'pro' brewer that we see so much of now.