Local brewer expands as craft beer industry slows
WAUNAKEE, Wis. (WKOW) – Octopi Brewing in Waunakee is in the midst of a large expansion project that will allow it to produce the beer of its parent company in sufficient quantities to make major inroads in the U.S. market. The push bucks the more modest moves happening elsewhere in the craft brewing industry.
Octopi was purchased last year by Asahi Group, a Japanese company. Earlier this month, the corporation announced it would invest $35 million to expand Octopi’s production capacity.
The acquisition and subsequent expansion project were unusual moves in an industry whose hot growth of a decade ago has largely cooled.
According to the Brewers Association, 2024 was the first year since 2005 when more breweries closed than opened. In total, 395 breweries launched in the past year while 480 shut down. Closings had been catching up to openings for years, but the change in totals signaled a change in the industry’s future.
“The point we're at now is the signs of a maturing industry,” said Matt Gacioch, staff economist for the Brewers Association. “One where there are still openings and there are still closings, but those numbers are much closer to one another.”
Gacioch also said that Asahi’s purchase of Octopi stood out for its size. He said it's more typical to see smaller breweries merge, rather than a large overseas company snap up an established domestic operation.
“The technical expertise was here, the labor, the team was here. This area is growing, so there's a strong labor pool in the area to draw from,” said Paul Verdu, the general manager of Octopi and Asahi Beer USA. “It's a combination of multiple factors that we all believed was a great place to start and to dip our feet into the waters of having a local production in the U.S.”
Octopi already stood out from the pack in terms of its business model. Over the years since its inception, Octopi had transitioned from focusing on brewing its own beer to becoming a contract brewer for other brands. Brewers Association data shows contract brewing has long been a small fraction of the total craft beer brewed by volume is produced on contract.
Verdu said Octopi’s status as an accomplished contract brewer helped attract Asahi’s eye.
“The beauty of being a co-manufacturer for other brands is we become less reliant on just being a beer manufacturer,” Verdu said. “It's really important to us.”
Once its expansion is complete, Asahi would like to have the Waunakee brewing operation producing its Asahi Super Dry beer in the quantities needed to eventually appear on shelves of major retailers in the U.S.
“We want to get Asahi Super Dry into [more than] just Asian restaurants, Japanese restaurants, into all the chain stores, bars, restaurants,” Verdu said.
