Four Corners Brewing in Dallas is going to be an independent craft brewery again after its founders announced they are buying the company back from Constellation Brands, a Fortune 500 company that has owned the company since 2018.
The deal comes after Constellation Brands, which has a market cap of nearly $43 billion, made a strategic decision to concentrate on its leading beer brands: Modelo, Corona, and Pacifico.
Constellation is moving away from craft and specialty companies including Four Corners in Texas and Funky Buddha Brewery in Florida.
Financial terms of the deal were not released.
“This is a small and growing brand, and it needs different attention and focus, and that’s what we’re going to put into it,” co-founder George Esquivel told The Dallas Morning News. “We’re getting back to the entrepreneurial roots we started with.”
Along with Esquivel, Four Corners’ other founders are Greg Leftwich and Steve Porcari. Four Corners investor Matt Waller reportedly will join the three founders as a partner in the acquisition.
Finding stability in an unstable time
[Image: Courtesy Four Corners Brewing Company via Instagram]
Esquivel, Leftwich and Porcari started brewing beer more than a decade ago. We told you about the creation of Four Corners Brewing in 2019.
The founders started brewing at home in 2013 when a change in Texas law made craft beer production and sales more competitive. Then they moved into a converted warehouse in West Dallas near where Trinity Groves would spring up.
According to The Dallas Morning News, Four Corners made 14,000 cases in 2013 and grew that number to 178,000 cases in 2018. That’s the year Constellation acquired the brewery.
Four Corners topped out at 228,000 cases in 2020 and scaled back to 165,000 cases by the end of 2022.
Ownership by a large company during the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent years brought stability to the company.
“It should not be missed that it would have been very scary times to be an independent brewer during the pandemic,” Esquivel told the Morning News.
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