USA: Miller will continue to produce Samuel Adams

Miller Brewing Co. will continue to produce the Samuel Adams brand at its brewery in North Carolina for the Boston Beer Co., the Boston brewer said in regulatory filing, according to The Business Journal of Milwaukee
October 29.

Boston Beer, which makes Sam Adams beer, extended a current agreement that expires at the end of October 2008 to allow Miller parent company SABMiller plc to brew certain beers at Milwaukee-based Miller's Eden, N.C., brewery, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing. The new agreement is effective Nov. 1, 2008.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Officials from Boston Beer Co. had previously said that production of its flagship Samuel Adams brand would end at the Eden brewery once the current contract expired. The brewer has been exploring various strategies of expanding production to meet growing demand and offset the pending expiration of the contract with Miller.

Sam Adams is also brewed at a brewery in Latrobe, Pa., owned by City Brewing Co. of La Crosse, which entered into a contract earlier this year. Boston Beer has said it was considering buying an equity interest in the Latrobe brewery, even after it agreed to buy a brewery located 60 miles outside of Philadelphia for $55 million from Diageo North America Inc.

31 October, 2007