Prairie Brewery

[Cats Cats Cats]

https://www.restaurant.com/prairie-brewpub-tulsa-pid=329663

they have huge coupons on restaurant.com

[BKDotCom]

Surprised I haven't seen this

http://www.tulsaworld.com/blogs/scene/whattheale/krebs-brewing-company-acquires-prairie-artisan-ales/article_91db22c6-6fc5-5bc2-99e5-75ff8d3f363e.html

[cannon_fodder]

I meant to post that a few days ago. The President of Krebs Brewing put a "Letter from Our President" on the Prairie Artisan Ales website announcing that Prairie sold their brands to Krebs.  It was confusing, because it was titled "Letter from Our President" and it wasn't Chase, had to read carefully, not just skim to see the sale announcement within the ramble (not that it was hidden).

http://prairieales.com/a-letter-from-our-president/

Apparently the deal actually happened, or at least was agreed to last fall. The statement is that they bought "the brands" which presumably means the Tulsa brewery and tap room remain. As I understand it, Krebs has always contract brewed the vast majority of Prairie beer anyway, so doubtful there will be any meaningful change to the beer and as I understand it the Prairie guys are still in the day to day operations, crafting, and decision making (which makes sense, why buy a brand and kill the idea makers behind it). But does seem less "Tulsa" than before.

Helps explain why Krebs bought the ambitious new larger system and got it up and running a month or so ago. Wonder if there was a buy-sell clause in the brewing contract, if the economics were tough as it scaled up, or if it was going from start-up mode to being more of a mature company and the start-up guys felt tied down by it. I have no idea, but would be curious on the reasoning.

[Hoss]

I meant to post that a few days ago. The President of Krebs Brewing put a "Letter from Our President" on the Prairie Artisan Ales website announcing that Prairie sold their brands to Krebs.  It was confusing, because it was titled "Letter from Our President" and it wasn't Chase, had to read carefully, not just skim to see the sale announcement within the ramble (not that it was hidden).

http://prairieales.com/a-letter-from-our-president/

Apparently the deal actually happened, or at least was agreed to last fall. The statement is that they bought "the brands" which presumably means the Tulsa brewery and tap room remain. As I understand it, Krebs has always contract brewed the vast majority of Prairie beer anyway, so doubtful there will be any meaningful change to the beer and as I understand it the Prairie guys are still in the day to day operations, crafting, and decision making (which makes sense, why buy a brand and kill the idea makers behind it). But does seem less "Tulsa" than before.

Helps explain why Krebs bought the ambitious new larger system and got it up and running a month or so ago. Wonder if there was a buy-sell clause in the brewing contract, if the economics were tough as it scaled up, or if it was going from start-up mode to being more of a mature company and the start-up guys felt tied down by it. I have no idea, but would be curious on the reasoning.

I went to Krebs in the spring of 2015 to go to the brewing facility and take a tour.  If it hasn't changed much since then, yes, they are contract brewing Prairie because I saw quite a few palettes of Bomb! and a lot of the hops and other ingredients specifically labeled for it.

[Conan71]

I meant to post that a few days ago. The President of Krebs Brewing put a "Letter from Our President" on the Prairie Artisan Ales website announcing that Prairie sold their brands to Krebs.  It was confusing, because it was titled "Letter from Our President" and it wasn't Chase, had to read carefully, not just skim to see the sale announcement within the ramble (not that it was hidden).

http://prairieales.com/a-letter-from-our-president/

Apparently the deal actually happened, or at least was agreed to last fall. The statement is that they bought "the brands" which presumably means the Tulsa brewery and tap room remain. As I understand it, Krebs has always contract brewed the vast majority of Prairie beer anyway, so doubtful there will be any meaningful change to the beer and as I understand it the Prairie guys are still in the day to day operations, crafting, and decision making (which makes sense, why buy a brand and kill the idea makers behind it). But does seem less "Tulsa" than before.

Helps explain why Krebs bought the ambitious new larger system and got it up and running a month or so ago. Wonder if there was a buy-sell clause in the brewing contract, if the economics were tough as it scaled up, or if it was going from start-up mode to being more of a mature company and the start-up guys felt tied down by it. I have no idea, but would be curious on the reasoning.

It is possible for the dreams everyone closely involved has for the Prairie brand that this was the way to go from a capital perspective.

Chase is very much an artist though his creative outlet is on a canvas much more different than most of us relate to.  He does things with beer no one or few ever thought of doing (and some which just don't register with me but are highly sought after all over the U.S. and abroad).  I mean literally, some of the things he has done used to be considered spoiled beer and now they can bring $12 a bottle.  Funny part is though, some of the brews he created prior to PAA are very much mainstream hits like Coop F-5 when he was at Coop Ale Works.

If everyone remembers, he purchased land down near Mounds which was to eventually merge all PAA operations at that property.  I believe part of the idea was to also grow some grain and hops on the property.  As he explained it to me, that whole move started to make little economic sense and was finally scuttled.  I have no idea if it was that he could not raise the funds for all the infrastructure and equipment needed or the idea of being deep in debt scared the hell out of him.  Perhaps the guys at Krebs were more willing to take that risk.  Perhaps PAA had started to become too mainstream for Chase and he's got something else coming out of the West Tulsa brewery.

There's many things about the blog post which are odd and leave more questions than answers and Chase and Colin's own FB pages mention nothing of this purchase nor what it means.  In fact, they have been completely silent about it.