Georgetown Brewing has acquired Timber City Ginger, a fellow Seattle-based ginger beer maker, the brewery announced today.
Ten-year-old Timber City’s portfolio includes both non-alcoholic (NA) and hard ginger beer, both of which Georgetown plans to continue producing.
“We are so honored to pass along all we have built to an incredible, local company that upholds the same principles we do: a love for our state and what it grows, tireless dedication to supporting Washington’s economy, a commitment to brewing and sharing quality products, and most importantly, a champion in community building,” Timber City co-founder Kara McKnight said in a press release.
“The team at Georgetown will help grow our spicy little beverage company the right way,” she continued.
Timber City’s NA and hard ginger beers start from the same base of ginger, water, lemon, organic cane sugar, sage and thyme, according to the brand’s website. Its NA offerings include Original Ginger Beer and a rotating seasonal variety.
Hard ginger beers include Timber City Imperial Ginger (7% ABV); South Sound Pounder (5% ABV), which is brewed with “seasonal rotating fruits and botanicals such as strawberry, cherry and peach;” and Timber City Celestial Seltzer (5% ABV), “herbaceous, dry, wine-based seltzers, highlighting seasonal botanicals.”
McKnight and her husband Kyle McKnight launched Timber City in 2014, after Kyle McKnight began making ginger beer while working as a chef. The brand made its debut at a farmers market, where it sold out in 90 minutes, according to a press release.
Timber City offerings were the first non-Georgetown products made available in the brewery’s taproom when it opened in 2019, co-owner Manny Chao noted in the release.
“Kyle and Kara are local, they are awesome, and their Ginger Beer is super darn tasty,” Chao said. “We really believe in what they started and we’re hoping to use our strengths to spread Timber City Ginger Beer regionally around the Pacific Northwest. It’s a perfect fit for us.”
Timber City is available at more than 300 on- and off-premise retailers in western Washington, including Whole Foods Market and taprooms of several craft bev-alc producers, including Schilling Cider, Ghostfish Brewing, Great Notion Brewing, Bainbridge Brewing and Whitewood Cider, according to its website.
All of Timber City products are available on draft, though cans account for a larger portion of the brand’s volume, marketing and communications manager Ingrid Bartels told Brewbound.
“We usually have their hard ginger beer on tap, and the NA Original Ginger in cans in our taproom,” she said. “Currently, we have their blackberry seasonal hard ginger beer on tap. The Doug Fir is also super popular.”
Timber City operates a production facility in Seattle’s South Park neighborhood, but does not have its own taproom. Georgetown will maintain the space “for the time being,” Bartels said.
“There is still plenty of availability to scale up in that space, but there will probably be a time when it makes sense to move operations over to one facility,” she added.
Georgetown has “no firm timeline” to scale up Timber City production.
“We are still learning about the market and the customers, but at some point we will want to start sending both hard ginger beer and the NA ginger beer to our distributors,” Bartels said. “Per the usual Georgetown way, we start slow and build up.”
Georgetown is the 16th largest craft brewery in the country by volume, according to the Brewers Association (BA). In 2023, its volume increased +1%, to 119,025 barrels of beer, according to the BA’s May/June issue of the New Brewer Magazine.
The 21-year-old brewery only sold its beer on draft until 2017, when it installed its first canning line, marketing and communications manager Ingrid Bartels told Brewbound in 2022.
Flagship Bodhizafa IPA is the 30th best-selling craft beer in multi-outlet grocery, mass retail and convenience stores tracked by market research firm Circana. Year-to-date through October 6, dollar sales of the beer increased +12.6%, to $16.7 million, and volume increased +12.3%.
Georgetown distributes in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana.
Editor’s note: this story was updated at 10:30 a.m. ET on Wednesday, October 23 to include additional information.