Goose Island Goes Nationwide

By Chuck Sudo in Food on Aug 24, 2012 7:25PM

The Goose Island "Chicago flag" logo, painted alongside the brewhouse office walls.

Goose Island's growth post-InBev/Anheuser-Busch merger continues. The brewery's beers will be available in all 50 states beginning in November. Tribune beer beat reporter Josh Noel has the details on the move.

Production of Goose Island's biggest-selling and highest-produced beers — 312 Urban Wheat Ale, Honker's Ale, India Pale Ale and seasonal brews like Mild Winter — will expand to AB's Ft. Collins, Colo. brewery. The beers will also continue to be made at an AB plant in Baldwinsville, N.Y., as well as in smaller amounts at the Red Hook brewery in Portsmouth, N.H. and Chicago.

Goose Island's Fulton Street brewery will continue to be where the Four Sisters line of Belgian-style ales, Bourbon County Stout and other specialty ales will be brewed. This news will undoubtedly start another round of "Goose Island sold out arguments." But as Noel and our own Paul Schneider noted, this and other moves in the 18 months since the merger have positioned Goose Island to become AB's national craft beer brand, and AB has been mostly hands off and allowed GI to do their thing since the merger.