Bell’s Brewery to Sell to New Belgium Parent Co. Lion; Larry Bell to Retire

Justin Kendall [00:07] Hey everyone, welcome to a special edition of the Brewbound podcast. My name is Justin Kendall, and I am the editor of Brewbound, and I am joined by Jess Infante, Brewbound star reporter. Jess, we've got big breaking news today, a blockbuster of a deal. Lion Little World Beverages is acquiring Bell's Brewery. As you remember, Lion acquired New Belgium in 2019, and here we are building out that platform.

Speaker 2 [00:35] Yeah, you know, they met at the time of that deal, there was a little bit of conversation about a platform that, you know, Lion would hope to build in the US, and this is certainly a giant stepping stone to get there. Bell's is the 7th largest craft brewer in the United States by volume, according to the Brewers Association. Of course, this deal will take a The BA certification and we, we asked the leaders of both companies about this and Larry Bell, what did he say to us?

Justin Kendall [00:59] He's not going to lose any sleep over that and nor should he because this is a major deal. This is creating a mega craft brewery. You mentioned the 500,000 barrels or so that Bell's produces annually. Add that to the million barrels or so that New Belgium is producing now, you've got 1.5 million barrels between them. This is a mega platform, they're clearly not done. This is just another step in the road. That's what Steve Hetheimer sort of told us when we talked to him about the deal. But this is a mega craft brewery deal. I, I, I don't know what else to really say as far as the size of this deal. Larry Bell is going to retire. He mentioned some serious health issues he was dealing with over the last year. He told us that he had a second bout with cancer, and he's kicked that, but This is really building on that legacy that he's built and ensuring. I

Speaker 2 [01:58] mean, Larry told us that, you know, there comes a time in your life when you need to make some big decisions and, and for him this was one. And you really, you could see it happening, uh, now that we look back at what we know from the beginning of this year on, it all makes sense, you know, uh, about February, uh, Bell's appointed senior vice president, Carrie Juncker, I guess, to senior vice president. Uh, Carrie's been with the company almost 20 years, and she's really leading the day to day now and has been since then. So, you know, it's about Larry finding a successor, and, you know, we had both Carrie and Steve on stage at, uh, Brutox in September. And, you know, you know, before we took the stage, you know, we were all standing around chatting and they introduced themselves, and I think we were all like, you guys don't know each other. That's so weird. But, but they did, they did, they knew each other. They were just pretending for all of our benefit. Excellent actors, uh, the two of them. But Larry told us they had the board of directors, uh, start considering the option of perhaps finding someone to acquire them, someone to merge with, some way to create the next future for Bells, and that started in January.

Justin Kendall [02:58] Yeah, so this is gonna lead to a, a portfolio that includes Voodoo Ranger, Fat Tire, Oberon, Two-hearted, throw in some fruit smash. They have a lot that they're going to be taken to market, and we asked Steve and Larry about the route to market because as we know, New Belgium is with the Reyes beer division and a lot of markets, and Larry Bell has not. Been a fan of Reyes in the past, but that doesn't seem to be a day one concern for them as far as that strategy goes.

Speaker 2 [03:31] No, and Bell's also is in 43 states, so we asked about how quick we might see bells, uh, reach distribution to all 50 US states and not really, uh, not a day one priority for, for them. So look for them to, to gain some volume through new markets, but unsure when that'll happen.

Justin Kendall [03:48] And Lyon's acquisitive nature has gone on throughout this last year in Australia, the company acquired Fermentum, which owns Stone and Wood, and I talked to our friends at Australian Brews News, and they told me that Stone and Wood is essentially the new Belgium of Australia, so, This is a global thing, this is not just here in the United States. Lion, Kieran owned company has designs on uh kind of a global craft beer domination.

Speaker 2 [04:24] Yeah, and we'll, we'll see, you know, how things play out. But, uh, are you surprised that it took them this long to, to take the next step in that platform they said they were going to build here?

Justin Kendall [04:34] Uh, not really. Uh, with the pandemic, I imagine that slowed things down quite a bit. I'm just glad that I'm not crossing the street in Santa Monica during. Rebound Live to find out this news. We actually got the New Belgium news well in advance of, of that event, but finding out that Ballast Point had sold, that was a little bit of a surprise, and it tis the season, I guess, for these type of deals. Uh, it wasn't, I want to say it was this time of year that Uh, Lions deal for New Belgium came together in 2019 and, you know, here, here we are again and we got the press release or not even the press release, we've got, we got the embargo news. Uh, bit from the PR agency today mentioning that there was a transaction going down and that the, the brewery principles would be available to us. Everything was super cryptic, and, you know, when we found out, it was shocking to say the least.

Speaker 2 [05:36] Well, I would just like to go on record by saying that I was on vacation when the New Belgium Lion news. It was released. It was like my 6th week of work and I had a planned trip to a family wedding in Mexico, leaving you high and dry and planning a conference, and I'm sorry, but I think that was what kind of the, uh, the cursed event that set off our tradition of one of us being off and huge news happening. So maybe this will break the spell.

Justin Kendall [06:00] Maybe, but that's the news right now. Lion Little World Beverages is acquiring Bell's Brewery. Adding to the platform that includes New Belgium, Larry Bell is going to retire and we're gonna see where this goes. So, thanks for tuning in. Thanks to our AV team for putting this together, and thanks for watching.