New duo takes helm of Alley Kat Brewing Co.

EDMONTON The owner of Alley Kat Brewing Company has been looking to sell, but he didn’t want to sell out.

“He didn’t want to put his babies so to speak into the hands of the big company. He really wanted to stay local and independent,” Michael Fulton, marketing manager for Alley Kat told Postmedia Tuesday.

On Tuesday it was announced Zane Christensen and Cameron French will assume ownership of the Edmonton craft beer staple, after Neil Herbst, one of Alley Kat’s original founders back in 1994, decided to sell.

The pair are both graduates of the University of Alberta and have a passion for beer and the craft beer industry. Herbst will remain involved in day-to-day operations to help with the transition.

“He has been looking at it for the last couple of years, obviously with craft brewing blowing up as it has, there’s always inquiries about, ‘Is your brewery for sale?’ and that sort of thing,” Fulton said.

In the past, Alberta breweries have “sold out” to some large multinational corporations and Fulton said Herbst didn’t want to do that.

In 2019, Wild Rose Brewery based in Calgary was acquired by Sleeman and just last week, another Calgary craft brewery, Branded Peak, was acquired by Labatt.

“The new owners are kind of coming in and saying, we love what you’ve done, and we want to continue that,” Fulton said.

“Going forward, we might see some changes down the road but right now it’s kind of business as usual, continue to produce the same great beer that we’ve been producing for 25 years and let the market kind of show us where it needs to go in the next few years.”

Alley Kat is Alberta’s fourth-longest operating brewery and last year, the company was awarded Brewery of the Year at the 2019 Alberta Beer Awards.