Sapporo sells US craft brewer Stone Brewing
In April 2026, Sapporo Holdings announced it would sell Stone Brewing, the major US craft brewer it acquired in 2022, to fellow brewer Firestone Walker.
On 21 April 2026, the Japanese brewing giant Sapporo Holdings (Sapporo HD) announced that it would let go of its US craft beer business, Stone Brewing. It plans to transfer the brand’s trademark rights and directly operated restaurants to the US craft brewer Firestone Walker by May, signalling a withdrawal from craft beer production in the United States. The case, in which a major Japanese company bought an overseas craft brewery and gave it up within a few years, offers food for thought on how far “craft” and the scale of a large corporation can be reconciled.
Withdrawal four years after the acquisition
Stone is a brewery founded in California in 1996, best known for its flagship Stone IPA. Sapporo HD acquired it in 2022 for about 20 billion yen. Afterwards, however, inflation pushed prices up and the US craft beer market stagnated. In the fiscal year ended December 2024, Sapporo HD booked an impairment loss of about 13.9 billion yen on the goodwill of this business (the portion of the purchase price exceeding the value of the assets). It cut the number of products and reviewed brewery operations, but concluded that it could only go so far in turning the business around on its own. The sale price has not been disclosed. While it expects to book a gain on the sale of about 23 million dollars, it will halt the California brewery, one of its two US breweries, by around the end of 2026, and expects an impairment loss of about 80 million dollars. The Virginia brewery will keep operating and will switch to producing its own brands, such as Sapporo Premium Beer, which is sold only overseas. Stone’s beers are expected to be brewed at Firestone Walker’s sites from 2027 onwards.
Focusing on its own brands, and the definition of “craft”
This is not the first time Sapporo HD has stumbled in US craft beer. Anchor Brewing, which it bought in 2017 for 11.8 billion yen, also kept underperforming and was dissolved in 2023. In the fiscal year ended December 2025, profit in the alcoholic beverages business was 25.4 billion yen in Japan, against only 1.1 billion yen overseas. The company has decided to sell its real estate business for about 470 billion yen, and plans to put 300 to 400 billion yen of the proceeds towards strengthening its alcoholic beverages business, including through acquisitions.
Incidentally, the Brewers Association, the US craft beer trade body, lists among its conditions for a craft brewer that “less than 25% of the brewery is owned or controlled by an alcoholic beverage industry member”. By that definition, once Stone came under the umbrella of a major Japanese company, it was no longer “craft” in the strict sense.
What European readers may want to note
The word “craft” is widely used, for beer and for sake alike, as a marketing phrase conveying a handmade feel and small production volumes. That is exactly why, when you pick up a bottle, it pays to look beyond the front label to the brewer and owner named on the back, which tells you much more about the background of the drink. Stone IPA is expected to be brewed at Firestone Walker’s breweries from now on. If you are a regular drinker, it could be interesting to check whether the brewer’s details or the taste change. With sake, too, a growing number of brands are being presented by overseas importers as “craft sake”. Looking at which brewery makes it, and at what scale, brings the meaning of the words on the label into sharper focus.
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This article was written by The Sake Wire editorial team, summarising the public sources listed above. Images are our own.
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