Magnolia's Dave McLean on brewery sale deal: 'It feels extremely experimental"

Magnolia Brewpub founder Dave McLean. Magnolia Brewpub founder Dave McLean. Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 7 Caption Close Magnolia's Dave McLean on brewery sale deal: 'It feels extremely experimental" 1 / 7 Back to Gallery

The day before Magnolia's Dave McLean was due to debut his curation of the Beer Lands tent at the 10th anniversary of Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival, news broke that his 20-year-old brewery was to be acquired by New Belgium, a much larger Fort Collins, Colorado-based brewing company, with a minority stake going to Oud Beersel, a Belgian lambic brewery.

The big reveal also came at a particularly odd time for San Francisco-based McLean because in the weeks before, The Chronicle reported that another of the city's stalwart brewing companies, Anchor, was also being acquired, and that 21st Amendment would sell a stake to Brooklyn Brewery.

"It blew up fast," says McLean, who was onsite at the San Francisco festival on Friday, Aug. 11. "It's been one week after another. What's going to happen next week?"

The acquisitions, to be sure, are all very different from each other. While Anchor's sale to Japan's Sapporo sees the Potrero Hill brewery continue to make their classic porters, barleywines, and of course, the Steam, New Belgium's purchase means that Magnolia would be allowed flexibility towards more experimental styles -- in particular, with the help of Oud Beersel, lambics.

"We've been focused quite a bit on the transaction," he says. "It's all very early, but there is a really cool idea of making the first lambic blendery outside of Belgium."

So much of the deal is nascent that McLean's not quite sure yet what his role will be, or what all three parties will get out of the partnership. He says that the group still needs to sit down and continue to talk about it — the whole sales discussion began less than six months ago — and adds the McLean the arrangement "feels extremely experimental."

"The basic lay of the land is New Belgium and Dick (Cantwell) and Oud Beersel created this new entity to create this wild — no pun intended — kind of lambic blendery. And with New Belgium, there was a lot of opportunity to work with their brewers and do some collaborative stuff. The biggest part of it all was Dick getting back into brewing after a couple years out of it."

As McLean stands at Beer Lands, surrounded by more than 25 local breweries that he's invited to pour for fest-goers, he considers how the industry has changed over the last year.

"The industry changes fast, and it seems like it changes faster the longer it goes. It's gotten really competitive and crowded and it's a lot of trying to find business relationships that work," he says. "The curve of growth just shot up."

That growth, though good for the industry, presented a strengthening challenge for Magnolia. The decision to sell may have been difficult, but it came only after McLean and the staff attempted every business strategy they could, he says.

"It was an evolving path of trying everything," he says. "Trying to find this outside capital without a sale was hard and by the end of last year, it became clear that for everyone involved we should go for the sale."

McLean, however, is optimistic about the "new chapter."

"There are breweries trying out what seems like different version of, 'How can we mature as an industry and deal with these challenges while still maintaining a soul?'" he adds. "That's what this deal seems like it is to me ... From the beermaker perspective it's going to get a lot more interesting."

Alyssa Pereira is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at apereira@sfchronicle.com or find her on Twitter at @alyspereira.

