Bottle Logic Brewing, the Anaheim brewery whose Stasis Project imperial stouts have been beer-geek gold for a decade, is joining forces with The Bruery and Offshoot Beer Co. The three brands will sit under a new name, The Bruery Group. Barry Holmes, CEO of The Bruery and Offshoot since January 2018, will run the combined company. Financial terms were not disclosed. The deal is expected to close later this year and had not closed as of the announcement.
The news was posted on The Bruery’s company blog Sept. 28. For barrel-aged beer, this is a local story as much as a business one. These three brands grew up 1.6 miles apart.
Neighbors, not strangers
The Bruery opened in Placentia in 2008 under founder Patrick Rue. Offshoot, its hop-forward sister brand,launched in 2017. Bottle Logic was founded in 2013 by Wes Parker, Steve Napolitano, and Brandon Buckner,and opened its tasting room Feb. 15, 2014, at 1072 N. Armando St. in Anaheim.The two houses were already in each other’s cellars. They blended Logical Conjunction in 2023, a 13.3 percent imperial stout finished in Elijah Craig 12-year, rye, and port barrels. A third collaboration, a three-year bourbon-barrel stout with what The Bruery calls a “surprise treatment,” was on the 2026 Reserve Society calendar before any of this was announced. Parker is quoted in this week’s release. Napolitano is not.
Change fears
Holmes and the Bottle Logic founders are selling continuity as hard as they’re selling scale. The Anaheim tasting room stays open. The beers stay Bottle Logic beers. The Stasis Project, the line that treats the barrel as a fifth ingredient, stays at the center of the brand. Buckner will keep leading Bottle Logic under the new umbrella. For the first time, Bottle Logic’s allocated bottles will move through The Bruery’s direct-to-consumer platform, which the company says now ships to 43 states. How Bottle Logic customer accounts work, and how Hoarders and Reserve members get in line for Stasis, will be spelled out “ahead of the first releases on the platform.”
That’s where The Bruery really brings value to the deal. Its societies — Preservation, Reserve, Hoarders — are a fulfillment operation most regional breweries never quite managed to build. Bottle Logic has been more old-school with releases: Anaheim lines, local bottle shops. Putting Darkstar November on thebruery.com is a real change in how that beer has been released.
Not the Bruery I wrote about in 2017
I covered The Bruery as a private-equity story on May 19, 2017, when Rue sold a majority stake to Castanea Partners of Newton, Massachusetts. The recap closed June 1, 2017. Rue stayed on as CEO. He and his father, Mike, kept “significant” equity. Terms were not disclosed then, either. The company still called itself independent.
This is a different company. Holmes, a consumer-goods operator with PepsiCo, L’Oréal, Equinox, and Surf Air on his résumé, took over as CEO in 2018. In 2020 he and an investor group bought The Bruery from the private-equity owners. In 2022 the company cut leased space, including a 40,000-square-foot Orange County warehouse and the Terreux sour facility and tasting room in Anaheim. The Washington, D.C. store at Union Market closed at the end of April 2023, when the five-year lease was up. In 2024 the company opened a taproom in Meridian, Idaho, with 36 taps and a beer garden next to Topgolf.
Rue is gone from The Bruery. By 2022 he no longer held a stake; he cited a nondisclosure agreement and would not discuss the split. He had already moved to St. Helena and started Erosion Wine Co. in 2019, then bought Lagunitas’s 50 percent of Santa Rosa’s Moonlight Brewing in May 2022. He closed the Erosion tap house in April 2023, sold that business, and moved back to Southern California. The name on the new group is still his. He is not in the building.
The verbs are doing work
Like every announcement about a merger or a sale, the verbs and descriptors are carefully chosen. In this case, all involved are “joining forces.” Shared production, distribution, and streamlined operations are the official reasons.
How it will all work — one cellar or two, who signs the next Stasis recipe, whether Anaheim regulars lose local-only bottles to a 43-state queue — remains to be seen.
]]>The beermarionette game got a few soaked in beer, and the stein hoisting competition showed a few first timers how hard it actually is to keep that weight straight out in front of you for that long.
Always a good time, and great people.
]]>Let’s tackle the beer first. Shock Top is no stranger to seasonal/experimental flavors. Past flavors include Twisted Pretzel Wheat, Shockolate Wheat, Pumpkin, and Spiced Banana Wheat, to name a few.
This year, Shock Top has chosen Halloween’s most polarizing candy – Candy Corn, to make Shock Top Candy Corn Wheat Ale. It’s a 5% ABV seasonal release built for Halloween drinking, and pre-gaming for your haunted house runs. Love candy corn but wish it came with a buzz? Well, here you go. Hate candy corn? Try it anyway.
Here is where it either gets weirder or cooler. Spirit Halloween is now offering an exclusive Shock Top Halloween Wedgehead costume, in case you want to dress like the beers you will be drinking. Wedgehead is a Spirit Halloween online exclusive, and will run you $69.99.
Shock Top Candy Corn Wheat Ale is hitting shelves nationally now, in 12-oz 6-packs.
Happy Halloween 
Somebody walked into an Anheuser-Busch distribution center in Montclair, California last week, said the right words to the right person, and drove off with a semi-load of Pabst Blue Ribbon. No broken glass, no masked men, no hijacked rig on a highway like a Hollywood movie. Just paperwork that looked real enough to work.
Here’s what actually happened, because it seems the folks that only read headlines have a skewed version of what could be the biggest beer theft in history.
Two beer pick-ups, one warehouse
On Monday, Aug. 17, two separate cargo pickups went out from the Anheuser-Busch facility at 4545 Brooks Street -about 35 miles east of downtown LA and neither made it to their destination.
Around 10 a.m., a shipment worth roughly $45,000 headed for Tucson disappeared. About an hour later, a company that had no business picking up anything beer or otherwise, used fake documentation to walk out with another $25,000 in Anheuser-Busch and PBR product, this one reportedly bound for San Diego. Montclair PD says the paperwork from both pickups shared enough odd overlaps including trucking company, driver info, vehicle details Investigators are now working the theory it was the same operation running the same play twice in one morning.
Combined value: about $70,000. As of Aug. 31, there are no suspects and nothing has been recovered.
The 40,000-pound number, explained
Most of the coverage has repeated “40,000 pounds of beer,” which is the San Diego-bound haul, the one Pabst has actually made public. A police report cited by the Los Angeles Times breaks it down to the case:
| Product | Pack-out | Cases | Cans |
|---|---|---|---|
| PBR | 15-packs, 25-oz cans | 860 | 12,900 |
| PBR | 30-packs, 12-oz cans | 546 | 16,380 |
| Old Milwaukee N/A | 24-packs, 12-oz cans | 196 | 4,704 |
| Total | 1,602 | 33,984 |
That’s 145 barrels, roughly 4,500 gallons, and a beer-only weight around 39,264 pounds – about 40,049 with pallets and separators factored in. Not 50,000 cans, but headlines are headlines.
Beer Theft. Not Truck Theft.
The stolen truck isn’t a stolen truck. Headline: “PBR truck stolen” isn’t accurate. Nobody stole a truck. Pabst doesn’t own the truck. What happened is what the FBI would call strategic cargo theft. Someone posed as the legitimate carrier scheduled to pick up the beer, and the warehouse handed it over because the documents checked out. California accounted for roughly a third of all reported U.S. cargo theft in Q2 2026, per reporting tied to this case, so this isn’t exactly rare. It’s just this time, it’s beer.
Montclair PD had to say this publicly, in writing, after Pabst’s own social posts framed it as a stolen truck: “We are working this case, but no trucks were stolen. Just the cargo.” Pabst has since walked that language back too.
Pabst’s response is very Pabst.
Pabst went public with the theft even before police did with an Instagram post on Aug. 21-22 announcing “STOLEN – 40,000lbs of beer” over a photo of a PBR truck the company admits isn’t even the actual truck, “because we can’t find that one.” Then came the marketing fun: a return window of exactly 18 days and 44 minutes, a nod to the brewery’s 1844 founding, with no questions asked, plus an undisclosed reward. CBS Los Angeles has reported that reward could be worth half the beer’s value if it comes back safe, though Pabst seemingly hasn’t confirmed that amount.
PBR doing PBR stuff.
As of August 31st
Montclair PD is still working it. No arrests, no recovered product, and the department didn’t put out its own statement until more than a week after the theft, but Pabst got there first. Anyone with information on the incidents, the vehicles, the driver, or the delivery company involved is asked to call the tip line at 909-621-4771.
Either way, a lot of beer is missing and the thief or thieves might be too drunk to care at this point.
Figures reflect public reporting as of Aug. 31, 2026. Investigation ongoing.
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Terrapin Beer Co. will stop brewing at its longtime Athens, Georgia facility on September 25, 2026. The parent company Tilray Brands is unveiling a sweeping corporate restructuring plan disclosed in its annual report filed July 28. The longtime home at Newton Bridge Road site isn’t fully closing – the taproom, beer garden, warehouse, and repack operations will all continue running. The full-scale operations that Terrapin has been running since 2007 at their current location will cease.
Terrapin will no longer be brewed in Athens, Georgia. This is part of Project 420, a business optimization plan aimed at consolidating brewing capacity and streamlining operations. Redhook, Atwater, Hop Valley, and Revolver have also been named in the consolidation push.
John & Spike & Terrapin History
Terrapin was founded in Athens in 2002 by Brian “Spike” Buckowski and John Cochran, taking its name from the Grateful Dead’s Terrapin Station. Music was always part of Terrapins identity. Rye Pale Ale took Great American Beer Festival Gold, and later Hopsecutioner IPA rose to flagship status.
Molson Coors took a majority stake in 2016 through its Tenth and Blake craft division, cutting Terrapin’s “craft” status with the Brewer’s Association. It also meant for the first time since their founding, Terrapin wasn’t pouring at famed Decatur, Georgia beer bar, Brick Store Pub. That ownership lasted until September 2024, when Tilray Brands acquired Terrapin along with Hop Valley, Revolver, and Atwater from Molson Coors in a single transaction. Tilray was already known to Georgia – owning SweetWater Brewing in Atlanta. Over time, founders Spike and John, along with CEO Dustin Watts departed the company.
Tilray hasn’t made a public press release about this optimization move. Layoffs have already begun at Terrapin as the business model shifts.
Beer Street Journal will continue following this story. For the latest on taproom hours and events, check Terrapin’s official channels directly, as details can shift during a transition like this.
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Buckminster Fuller (American architect) described a trim tab as the tiny rudder on a ship’s rudder – a small mechanism that, when turned, can change the course of even the largest vessel. TrimTab Brewing took that metaphor and made it their founding principle. For the last 13 years, the brewery at 2721 5th Ave S operated exactly that way, changing the direction of Birmingham, Alabama craft beer.
TrimTab has announced its Tasting Gallery will permanently close on July 4, 2026.
“Our Tasting Gallery has been more than just a place to enjoy beer,” the brewery wrote. “It has been a living room for the community, a gallery for local artists, a stage for live music, and an inclusive space to bring people together.”
The closure didn’t arrive without warning. In late 2024, TrimTab announced acquisition talks with Cahaba Brewing, and if the the timeline holds, the Tasting Gallery would be done by the end of 2025. When it didn’t close, there were talks of a capital raise. But now, July 4 is bringing the final answer.
The beers live on for now.
TrimTab IPA and Paradise Now are expected to continue in select markets, but the production arrangement is vauge. A brewery’s craft beers outliving their taproom isn’t rare these days. I guess it depends on whether you would rather have the beer or the ambiance.
Below: Beer Street Journal video shot with Will Crenshaw, a brewer previously from SweetWater in Atlanta, talking about his role at TrimTab and the future production facility. Circa 2013.
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What is America’s 250th Anniversary without Pabst Blue Ribbon throwing down something for the celebration? Today, Pabst Blue Ribbon has declared themselves (officially or unofficially) the most American beer in America. In honor of that announcement, as well as the 250 – introducing the 250 ounce pack.
Each pack contains ten 25oz cans, that’s 250 ounces of PBR for the mathematical inclined – packaged in a “bespoke firework and bad-ass soaring eagle design” package.
The 250oz pack comes with a full declaration as well, with a subtle dig at another larger brewery:
- Pabst doesn’t have to release an American flag can to celebrate America’s 250th. It has always been red, white and blue.
- According to folklore, Pabst bestowed this great nation with its first six-pack in the 1940s.
- Cracking a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon resembles the sound of a V8 engine.
- Of all the Blue Ribbons in America, Pabst’s is the one you think of first.
In the past, Pabst has released the 1776 Pack containing 1,776 beers for July 4th, followed the next year with the 1884 Pack, a full 68 more than the previous year – celebrating the year the brewery was founded.
These Freed Packs are limited to 4,000 packs nationwide alongside new “Most American” merch at MostAmerican.beer
Livin’ Salty is a Continue Reading →]]>
Livin’ Salty is a salt and lime lager brewed with real limes and salt, clocking in at 5% ABV. It’s highly sessionable, screams warm-weather, and aligns with a massive audience that already self-identifies as water-obsessed and outdoorsy.
Water, the outdoors, and SweetWater Brewing have always been best friends. The brewery has worked with Waterkeeper Alliance, Bonefish & Tarpon Trust, and Trout Unlimited. Salt Life has been expanding beyond apparel into home and lifestyle products, so adding a co-branded craft beer from the Southeast’s biggest brewery is a natural extension of that push.
SweetWater Livin’ Salty is available in 6-packs, 15-packs, and on tap at the SweetWater Taproom in Atlanta, and also at Salt Life Food Shacks.
Style: Lager (w/ Limes. Salt.)
Hops: Hallertau Mittelfrüh, Crystal hops
Availability: 12oz Cans, Draft.
Debut: Late April/May, 2026
5% ABV
]]>Angry Chair Brewing, the South Seminole Heights institution has been put up for sale. The BizBuySell listing, which surfaced publicly the week of April 23, 2026 is offering Continue Reading →]]>
Angry Chair Brewing, the South Seminole Heights institution has been put up for sale. The BizBuySell listing, which surfaced publicly the week of April 23, 2026 is offering the business as a turnkey acquisition at an asking price of $3 million.
The sale covers the business, not the real estate. According to the post, the $3 million asking price includes brewing and kitchen equipment, packaging facilities, the Angry Chair brand and recipes, and all furniture, fixtures, and equipment (valued at approximately $1 million). The sale also ncludes hands-on training for new ownership on brewing processes and taproom operations.
Inventory, valued at around $50,000, is not included in the sale price, but presumably could be acquired as well.
Angry Chair operates out of a 14,300-square-foot space at 4101 N. Florida Ave. The current lease runs through January 2027 at $25,000 per month. That is not part of this transaction, so potential buyer could relocate the brewery completely.
The listing reports approximately $1.5 million in annual revenue and a staff of 13- eight full-time, five part-time.
Angry Chair opened in 2013, with the taproom following in 2014. No timeline has been disclosed for the sale process. Until ownership transfers, or the listing comes down, Angry Chair is operating normally.
This is a developing story.
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