Oskar Blues buys Florida craft brewery

Oskar Blues Brewing has pulled off an acquisition of yet another fellow craft brewer.

Fireman Capital Partners- backed Oskar Blues on Monday said it had purchased Cigar City Brewing in Tampa, Fla., for an undisclosed sum.

The deal comes amid a surge of consolidation in the beer industry, during which craft breweries have sold for as much as $ 1 billion but typically are priced around $ 1,000 a barrel, analysts say.

Cigar City produces about 60,000 barrels per year.

The buyout aligns with Oskar Blues’ “against the grain” expansion strategy that includes snapping up smaller breweries that are experiencing growing pains, building a network of regional Oskar Blues breweries and creating a cluster of side businesses, officials said.

“I think the goal is to be able to provide additional resources— financially and ex-perience-wise — and create a collaborative environment where breweries can keep their culture,” Oskar Blues spokesman Chad Melis said.

The Cigar City deal comes nearly a year after Oskar Blues picked up Perrin Brewing Co., a small brewery near Grand Rapids, Mich., that was churning out about 14,000 barrels of beer a year.

“Cigar City is facing next- level challenges, and we needed to develop next- level

skills and resources to meet them,” said Joey Redner, who founded Cigar City Brewing in 2009. His brewery was producing 60,000 barrels by the end of last year. “But, we got into beer out of passion and an unwavering desire to travel our own path. We didn’t want to just shove our round peg into some square hole and hope for the best.”

That’swhere Oskar Blues — and, ultimately, Bostonbased FiremanCapital Partners— came in.

Since the Oskar Blues acquisition, Perrin has been able to can and distribute its beers in its home state, Melis said. Cigar City hit a capacity ceiling, so Oskar Blues hopes to help solve that problem, he said.

“It’s not like you need to go in there and make changes. You just need to give them more resources to keep them doing what they’re doing,” he said. “There’s not a prescribed road map, and I think all of us like that.”

Fireman took a stake in Oskar Blues around the time the Longmont- based maker of canned craft beer was in talks with Perrin. Fireman, which has a hand in businesses such as Boulder’s Newton Running, also has a stake in Utah Brewers Cooperative, which produces the Squatters and Wasatch brands.

In the deal announced Monday, CigarCitywill join Perrin, Utah Brewers and Oskar Blues under theUnited Craft Brews LLC umbrella, according to Brewbound, which reported last month that Cigar City also was in discussions with AnheuserBusch InBev.

Massive AB InBev has been on a craft beer buying spree, acquiring a long list of well- known, middle- tier breweries, including Goose Island, Elysian Brewing and Littleton- based Breckenridge Brewery.

CigarCity’s talks with AB InBev didn’t materialize after an exclusivity clause expired on its letter of intent to acquire, Brewbound reported.