I was finishing a deadline article for the Chicago Tribune Tuesday afternoon when an email arrived from someone who also writes about the beer industry. The subject line: “who the heck is king's and convicts?”

I opened the email. It said: “no. but really....”

I hadn’t heard the news yet, and wondered why this person was asking about a tiny suburban Chicago brewery that’s so tiny, most Chicagoans haven’t even heard of it. Moments later, a press release popped up in my email. It said that the tiny brewery had bought the iconic Ballast Point Brewing.

I hammered out a reply to that fellow journalist: “UH HOLY WHAT THE F***”

(Yes, it was all caps, and no, there were no asterisks.)

His response: “precisely this.”

All this is to say, during this fevered era of brewery acquisitions that began with Goose Island’s sale to Anheuser-Busch in 2011, there have been dozens of deals. Some have caused barely a flutter: Revolver Brewing selling to MillerCoors, Karbach Brewing selling to Anheuser-Busch and Three Weavers Brewing selling to Canarchy elicited mostly shrugs beyond their home markets.

Others have changed the industry. They have made our jaws drop. They have made us say, UH HOLY WHAT THE F***.

But the most stunning deals haven’t all possessed equal UH HOLY WHAT THE F***NESS (yes, now an official craft beer industry term). Here are the Top 10 most UH HOLY WHAT THE F*** craft brewery acquisitions since Goose Island’s sale, ranked in terms of UH HOLY WHAT THE F***NESS.

10a. Cigar City sells to Canarchy (March 2016)

Cigar City is just another good brewery these days — no shame in that — but when this deal went down, it was still a buzz-worthy darling. That alone made the deal a biggie.

But it was also preceded by ample intrigue: several sources, from the local newspaper to the Full Pint beer blog, had reported Cigar City was in talks to sell to big bad Anheuser-Busch. (Which it was.)

But in a last minute pivot, Cigar City sold to Canarchy instead, the private equity-backed collective spearhead by Oskar Blues Brewing. It wasn't a shock to see Cigar City sell, but the ultimate buyer certainly was a surprise. To some people, it was also a relief.

10b. Founders sells to Mahou San Miguel (December 2014)

This was just a 30 percent stake at the time — it has since been upped to 90 percent — but felt like a lot more. An ambitious brewery with one of the industry’s hottest brands (All Day IPA) selling a stake to Spain’s largest beer company? No big deal these days. But in 2014, it signaled something radical was afoot.

9. Firestone Walker sells to Duvel Moortgat (July 2015)

Firestone Walker is roundly considered one of the nation’s great breweries — if not the best. Still, its sale to an iconic Belgian beer company made for a deal most onlookers could feel OK about: “Before one gets all bent out of shape on this purchase, Duvel Moortgat is one of the most respected brewers in the world and have been brewing since being founded in 1871 in Steenhuffel, Belgium,” Brewpublic wrote. “Now the brewery is run by the third generation of the Moortgat family.”

In other words: At least it wasn’t Anheuser-Busch.

In reality, before agreeing to terms with Duvel, Firestone Walker had been, like Cigar City, on the verge of selling to Anheuser-Busch. Such a deal would have vaulted it much higher on this list. Instead, its sale became an UH HOLY WHAT THE F*** moment both for such a revered brewery choosing to sell and for Duvel’s unlikely ability to snag it.

8. Elysian sells to Anheuser-Busch (January 2015)

The Seattle version of Goose Island’s sale: a revered regional trailblazer opening its arms to the company that had spent years suppressing not only the competition, but the creativity of the entire beer industry.

No one said UH HOLY WHAT THE F*** more than Seattle beer drinkers, but anyone with an appreciation for modern craft beer history felt it.

7. New Belgium sells to Kirin (November 2019)

A stunner due both to the buyer and the seller. This deal was Kirin’s entry into American craft beer and an unexpected turn for industry legend New Belgium, which had earned decades of good will among beer nerds (La Folie) and non-beer nerds (Fat Tire) alike.

This was the rare sale to get mostly attaboys due to New Belgium’s employee ownership, which meant hundreds of workers cashed out rather than a handful of founders. Relative unfamiliarity with Kirin among American beer drinkers also couldn’t have hurt. Still, seeing an American craft brewing icon sell to Big Beer — Japanese or not — was a moment.

6. Dogfish Head sells to Boston Beer (May 2019)

An UH HOLY WHAT THE F*** deal for several reasons: it was so unexpected, it happened between two companies so familiar to most of us and — the kicker — it actually made sense.

Boston Beer needed to shore up its beer business. Dogfish Head, which had earlier sold a 15 percent stake to a private equity firm, didn’t want to go it alone in an increasingly treacherous beer market. How do you get someone in Arizona to buy 60 Minute IPA or SeaQuench? It becomes immeasurably easier as part of a national powerhouse such as Boston Beer.

There wasn’t much to dislike about two well-respected legends joining forces, though seemingly no one had seen it coming.

5. Ballast Point sells to Constellation Brands (November 2015)

Both who sold and who bought were fascinating here: Ballast Point was a well-regarded West Coast legend about to go public; Constellation, owner of Corona, Modelo, Pacifico and other top Mexican beer brands in the U.S., made its first foray into craft beer with this deal. But the astonishing feature of this deal was the money.

$1 billion.

The era of brewery acquisitions entered irrational exuberance with this sale, and everyone knew it. But what did it signal in the longer term? That was more difficult to understand in the moment.

“I’m still trying to process this — and especially process a billion dollars,” Bart Watson, chief economist for the Brewers Association, told the San Diego Union-Tribune the day the sale was announced. “It looks to me like we’ve entered a new era for breweries.”

4. Lagunitas sells to Heineken (September 2015)

“Selling one’s brewery is selling all of one’s best friend’s careers, their hearts, the portion of their lives they spent working for you.”

Lagunitas founder Tony Magee tweeted that sentiment less than two years before selling half his company to Heineken with an option to buy the other half (which Heineken did in May 2017). That was how sharply things had changed by 2015: Even critics such were on board with craft beer’s consolidating reality.

Magee had initiated the deal, convincing Heineken it needed Lagunitas precisely because Magee believed Lagunitas needed Heineken. With this deal — and craft beer’s leading IPA maker in the grips of Big Beer — there was officially no going back.

3. Goose Island sells to Anheuser-Busch InBev (March 2011)

So momentous, it deserved a book.

2. Wicked Weed sells to Anheuser-Busch InBev (May 2017)

The Goose Island deal was stunning and befuddling: what did it mean?

Wicked Weed’s sale was stunning and enraging: everyone knew damn well what it meant.

As I’ve previously written on this blog, the Wicked Weed deal was so pivotal, it became the end of the book. It was the period on the sentence — the exclamation mark, really — that began with Goose Island’s sale.

No deal in craft beer’s era of M&A elicited more fury than Wicked Weed’s. As written in Chapter 30:

People liked Wicked Weed because Wicked Weed had the unique ability to make people care — in the beer, in the brand, and in the ethos. And that made its sale to Anheuser-Busch an exacting punch to the gut. It was Goose Island and Elysian all over again. It was a reminder that Big Beer would never stop. It forever had the ability to thrust itself into the heart of craft beer.

1. Ballast Point sold to Kings & Convicts (December 2019)

Look. I’m going to level with you.

This blog post was actually finished before this batshit sale was announced; I was still laboring over the editing for no good reason. But, boy, am I glad I waited.

In the original version, Wicked Weed was in the top spot. The moment this deal was announced, however, it demanded to be here.

How could it not be? The downfall of the once-great Ballast Point was cemented. The folly of Constellation Brands’ $1 billion purchase was affirmed. The oddball ascendance of a no-name brewery was instant. Many versions of a buy-low Ballast Point sale would have made sense. BrewDog? Boston Beer? Canarchy? Sure, why not.

But Kings & Convicts?

The reality is that this sale may belong on an entirely new list. Unlike most of the other deals here, this probably isn’t an extension of what began with Goose Island selling to Anheuser-Busch; this is the beginning of something entirely new. It’s something that not only inverts the entire acquisition model we’ve seen unfold during the last eight years, but underscores the boom or bust nature of craft brewing.

My coverage of the deal for the Chicago Tribune attracted remarkable readership numbers — more than anyone anticipated. There was a simple reason for that: we were all stunned by this odd deal. We all, at once, loudly exclaimed, UH HOLY WHAT THE F***?!