Four Pure & Magic Rock have 3rd owner in less than 5 years. Whatever happened to the craft beer ‘dream’
Four Pure and Magic Rock have been bought by Odyssey Inns from Australian brewer Lion which itself is owned by Kirin. Lion’s acquisitions in 2018 and 2019 look different in the world of 2022 and the breweries had been on the market since January.
I’m not sure Odyssey Inns actually own pubs as the company was only registered in November 2021 but one of the three Directors is Stephen Cox, who resigned today as an non-exec at well regarded (mainly)lager brewers Utopian.
Hopefully this means both breweries are now independent again, finance and business plans allowing. However both have now had three owners in less than five years. If there are any employees left from that period they’d be well advised to join a union pronto if not already a member.
The original craft beer dream as I recall was that the new breweries were fiercely independent and would not sell to Big Beer. In addition what they cared about was making good quality interesting beer, profit not so much(though no business can sustain making a loss forever).
Of course capitalism tends to monopoly as the history of brewing underlines but to be fair there are still breweries out that have stuck to the original craft principles. Perhaps Four Pure and Magic Rock will now re-join them again, but what a long strange trip its been.
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