SweetWater Brewing parent company to acquire 8 Anheuser-Busch brands

Anheuser-Busch is selling eight of its beer and beverage brands, including Breckenridge Brewery.

Tilray Brands, a global cannabis lifestyle and consumer packaged goods company — and the parent company of SweetWater Brewing — announced Monday it would purchase the brands.

The company will acquire Shock Top, Breckenridge Brewery, Blue Point Brewing Co., 10 Barrel Brewing Co., Redhook Brewery, Widmer Brothers Brewing, Square Mile Cider Co., and HiBall Energy, with the sale expected to close this year, according to a new release.

The sale will push Tilray Brands from the ninth-largest craft beer business in the U.S. up to the fifth. It currently owns Breckenridge Distillery, Montauk Brewing Co., Alpine Beer Co., Green Flash Brewing Co. and SweetWater Brewing Co. — an Atlanta-born brewery that opened a Fort Collins brewing facility and taproom in late 2021.

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The sale comes during a tumultuous summer for Anheuser-Busch, which laid off hundreds of employees last month. The layoffs were announced after the brewing giant saw its sales decline and Bud Light lose its spot as the top-selling U.S. beer, following a consumer boycott over the company's partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.

Anheuser-Busch said frontline workers in its breweries and warehouses would not be impacted by the layoffs, which were said to affect less than 2% of the company's U.S. workforce.

It's unclear how many Anheuser-Busch employees in Fort Collins were included in the layoffs. Anheuser-Busch has not responded to the Coloradoan's repeated requests for comment.

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This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Fort Collins breweries: Anheuser-Busch to sell 8 beer, drink brands