GTA Brewery for sale?

[Images]

Industry drama!

While parusing the local Toronto Star paper on Saturday, I saw this tiny little ad in the classifieds (fyi: I'm moving, hence reading that section.)

Here is the little gem I came across:

MICRO BREWERY Well established micro brewery in GTA turn-Key business selling to LCBO, restaurants & pubs. Family owned, not a franchise.

Any thoughts as to who this might be? I've stripped the contact information as it's just a sales company (not the actual brewery) - but it's easily available if someone really wants it.

[GregClow]

Interesting... which Toronto-area micros are "family owned"? Off the top of my head, I can only think of Steam Whistle and Cameron's, neither of which seem likely to be up for sale.

Greg

[the.brewer]

What about Great Lakes? Amsterdam?

[GregClow]

I forgot about Great Lakes. And how about Trafalgar, is it family owned?

As for Amsterdam, I seem to recall hearing that it was bought last year some time by the person(s) behind Ball Beer. Could just be a rumour, but it would explain the change to those clear bottles...

Greg

[PRMason]

Ball Beer did in fact purchase Amsterdam last year.
Trafalgar lost its major contract to produce the house beer for Red Lobster Canada, so its possible they're on the block. Could it be Robinson's? They are family owned.

[Asim Ozses]

I don't know the name of the place but here is the listing for it.
http://www.cls.ca/property.asp?fs=Y&pts ... pid=602950

[Asim Ozses]

looking at the picture closer I did notice that it is Robinson's

[DAN-D-MAN]

Asim is right... It is Robinson's and it looks like it's been for sale for a while as they reduced the price by $60K!

To see the listing, click on the link below and enter Listing # W208550

http://www.cls.ca/search.asp?L=1

I can tell you that whenever I speak with Mike Robinson about his business and the industry, he's always complaining about how difficult it is and if he could do it again, he certainly would not.

So, it seems he finally gave up. Another sad moment in the fight for a microbrewery to succeed.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: DAN-D-MAN on 2003-04-30 17:10 ]</font>

[Images]

On 2003-04-30 17:02, DAN-D-MAN wrote:
I can tell you that whenever I speak with Mike Robinson about his business and the industry, he's always complaining about how difficult it is and if he could do it again, he certainly would not.

Yes, that is the listing that I posted (same contact info) above.

But according to the cls website, it is a profitable business! (I can hear those chuckles from the rest of you brewmasters).

Hopefully someone will pick it up and continue moving the business forward.

[burgermeister]

On 2003-05-01 13:37, Images wrote:

Hopefully someone will pick it up and continue moving the business forward.

Thought I'd revive this thread with a bit of an update. I found out today that there have apparently been several interested parties looking at making offers for Robinson's. Among them was Amsterdam/Ball who were looking prior to finalizing the KLB deal. They're out looking for licenses and capacity.

There is an offer on the table for the brewery now. Don't know who it is but they are already a player in the industry. Will know by the beginning of August if the deal is going thru and hopefully, who is involved.

Also found out another juicy tidbit. Apparently when Ball bought out Amsterdam they paid something like $77Million for it - Including real estate, so the building in which they live was part of the deal. Don't know how accurate this is but it's interesting non the less.

Thought you might be interested.