Yet another legacy Colorado craft brewery is changing hands.
Durango-headquartered Ska Brewing was acquired in May by two families with ties to beer distribution, including Bob Ariano, who owns A&L Coors Distribution, the Durango Herald reported.
A sale price to the Ariano and West families was not disclosed, however, the sale reportedly wiped out Ska Brewing’s debt. Ska co-founder and president Dave Thibodeau told the Denver Post that Ska had taken on $5 million in debt for expansion, but those plans never came to fruition.
Thibodeau told the Herald: “There’s no personnel changes. There’s no culture changes. This isn’t private equity. This isn’t some outside company. It’s not Coors.”
Rumors of a sale of the 30-year-old craft brewery began circulating in February. That same month, A&L took over distribution of Ska’s beer.
Following the sale, Thibodeau will remain with Ska, along with Steve Breezley, who will be promoted from chief operating officer to CEO.
Part of the path forward is an expansion of Ska’s distribution footprint to Alamosa and the San Luis Valley, with the company focusing on Southern Colorado.
Ska entered 2020 with an arsenal of then on-trend tactics to combat its volume declines, including a hard seltzer, a 100-calorie IPA and new hospitality complex called Ska Street Brewstillery to showcase its beers and Peach Street Distillers spirits all produced on site.
Ska Street, which was set in the Boulder facility that previously housed Fate Brewing, was Ska’s foothold in Colorado’s more populous Front Range and opened in March 2020, the same month the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the on-premise channel. It closed in early 2022.
“I feel like we never really got a chance,” Thibodeau told Denver-area alt-weekly newspaper WestWord at the time.
Colorado’s craft ownership landscape has been influx in recent months. Last year, Stem Ciders and Denver Beer Co. and their related offshoots merged to form Wilding Brands, which has made several acquisitions, including Station 26 last week and Great Divide in April.
Longmont-based Left Hand Brewing has also launched a craft collective platform that made its first deal earlier this spring with the acquisition of Dry Dock.
In 2023, Tilray Brands acquired Breckenridge Brewery as part of its craft haul from Anheuser-Busch InBev, and Westbound & Down acquired Aspen Brewing.
Ska Brewing was the 150th largest regional craft brewery in 2024, according to the Brewers Association (BA). The company produced an estimated 17,059 barrels of beer, a 9% year-over-year (YoY) decline. Ska’s output had declined double-digits in the previous two years (-10% in 2023 and -17% in 2022), following 3% growth in 2021, to 24,268 barrels of beer.
Ska’s most recent peak output over the last 12 years occurred in 2016 when it produced 34,300 barrels of beer, according to the BA.