Green Flash Crash?

Looks like they bit off more than they could chew. What happens to Alpine?

From everything I’ve heard the Private Equity firm that acquired Green Flash gets Alpine too. I’m not sure who the visionary/leader is now for the Company. Rumor has it that it’s someone from AB Inbev. PE firms don’t usually make inspired beer, but they’re really good at marketing.

Is Alpine even anything anymore than a footnote of regional IPA brewing? They absolutely trashed the cachet and I don’t think there’s anyway to recover it. It would just be easier to start a new story.

The Greenflash strategy of an inch deep and a mile wide was never going to be sustainable.

PE firm bought it. No relation to inbev other than helping them do finance deals to buy smaller craft breweries.

The previous owner of green flash is still running the company. Seems… like a mistake.

BTW, the former owner of Alpine didn’t have very nice things to say about former CEO Mike Hinkley

That development drew barbed comments from McIlhenney. “I don’t have a lot of faith in the management,” he said, “especially if they keep Mike on management.

“He has no business being in this business. His business prowess is abysmal.”

From the San Diego Union-Tribune

Raising some eyebrows in the craft beer community is the addition of Joshua Yelsey, formerly of Anheuser-Busch, as manager of Green Flash’s new owner. Not only was he a manager in Anheuser’s mergers and acquisitions department, but he also worked as head of finance for such Anheuser-acquired craft breweries as Goose Island and Blue Point.

Just read that as well! My error

They didn’t cash out all of their interest from Green Flash so McIlhenney didn’t completely vest from their sale of Alpine.

I wonder how quickly Shawn McIlhenney starts up his own brewery once his contract is done.

With as bad as this shit show is and continues to develop I would not be shocked that they made the McIlhenney’s sign some sort of non-compete clause in their original contract if the two parties parted ways prematurely.

Cheers,

Bud

in light of some of Bud’s past experiences with Alpine, Pat’s comments strike me somewhat as pot calling kettle black.

That’s being polite Brian, I hate to say it but they put themselves in this position out of blind greed with no consideration of the consequences and I am not the only one who won’t lose sleep over this outcome. Over on BA this is trending big time, today on BA I recalled an experience at Alpine some years ago when they were having carbonation issues with a batch of Duet and Pure Hoppiness. The Alpine thread at BA was blowing up over this, I thought I’d take the high road, not bash them online and bring a bottle of the defective beer’s down to Alpine on my next trip to open with Pat and Steve. I walked into the brewery side, and gave the bottle’s to Pat and Steve, they looked at me like I was crazy, I asked them to open it so they could see for themselves what the issues that we, their customers had been experiencing. I’ll never forget what Pat said to me, " we dont brew inferior beer, and dont ever bring a bottle down here to tell me I do" OK… I then asked for 6 bottles of Nelson which were not effected by the carb issues, Pat looked at me and said, I won’t sell you bottles anymore, you can BUY growlers but your done with us as far as bottles go. I never went back to Alpine after that, FWIW at that point in time with my SD office only 30 minute away I was bringing clients and friends in to the brewery/pub regularly to eat, drink, buy bottles and growlers and swag to the tune of about 5K that year. Yea, go fck yourself Pat, you got what you deserved, the worse customer service and customer appreciation practices I have ever come across in my life, remember this is from a guy who actually said in his Alpine quarterly newsletter that he didn’t like " outsiders " coming up to Alpine as it would take beer away from the local’s ! I am among hundreds who always left Alpine thinking they did us a favor by letting us buy their beers, but fck they were great beers.

Cheers,

Bud

Can’t enforce a non compete in CA unless you have ownership stake (or a couple other exceptions he doesn’t reach). Sounds like the McIlhenney family has zero ownership stake now.

Yeah, Bud … and over what? 6 bottles of beer that probably would have cost them $18(?) to replace? The fact that he wouldn’t even open the bottle you brought to him proved he didn’t get a rat’s ass about his customers, and his follow-up comments merely confirmed that.

Ask Fu how he treated a customer who purchased bottles of Kiwi Herman but couldn’t get to the brewery to pick them up on time and asked if he could get a refund. As Charlie posted over on BA, Pat was what was wrong with Alpine.

Cheers,

Bud

Now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed a brewery crash and burn as quickly and badly as Alpine did; I suppose that started with the QC and cust. svc. issues you (and others) experienced, and was quickly wrapped-up in a bow with the sale to GF.

I believe you are correct sir. World class beers and even bigger world class douche bags. IMO the Mcllhenney’s are done. The Soup Natzi thing doesn’t fly in 2018.I think they actually could have made a nice run of it staying put and doing the smaller expansion they originally tried to do in 2010, It’s not shocking there wasn’t any serious taker’s on their investment offers back then to move the OG brewery and pub down Alpine Blvd, I read the prospective and it was a joke. Shawn Mcllhenney is a talented brewer, I do feel bad for him,I think he tried to separate himself from his fathers obnoxious behavior.

Cheers,

Bud