A-B Wants in on Sacramento’s Booming Craft Beer Scene
About a half-dozen large blue shipping containers sit arranged in a square behind a chain-link fence on the corner of L and 19th streets in Sacramento. Stacks of wooden barrels perch on top of one container, while another houses brewing equipment. Tables and strings of lights stretch across a courtyard still under construction.
Golden Road Brewery from Los Angeles will soon open an outpost on this busy corner in the heart of midtown’s entertainment district. The shipping containers scream craft brewery, but in fact Golden Road was purchased by industry giant Anheuser-Busch InBev in 2015.
This modest-looking outdoor venue represents the first attempt by a major beer conglomerate to get in on Sacramento’s exploding craft beer scene – and a sign of the local market’s maturation. This is what California Craft Brewers Association’s (CCBA) executive director, Tom McCormick, calls the “If you can’t beat ’em, buy ’em” strategy. Read more here, from the Sacramento Bee.