PD Editorial: Lagunitas puts local beer on the world's table

Sonoma County’s wines are renowned worldwide.

Craft beers from local breweries are developing their own reputation for excellence, but they’re harder to find than local wines the farther you range from Sonoma County.

That should begin to change with a partnership announced Tuesday between Petaluma-based Lagunitas Brewing Co. and Heineken International, the world’s third-largest beer company.

The deal offers Heineken, which is headquartered in Amsterdam, a toehold in the rapidly growing market for craft beers. Lagunitas will gain access to global markets using Heineken’s production and distribution network, which includes 165 breweries in 70 countries.

“For us, we don’t need assistance here in the United States. But there is the whole world to think about,” said Tony Magee, who started Lagunitas on his kitchen stove 22 years ago and built it into the sixth-largest craft brewer in the country, producing 825,000 barrels a year of its trademark India Pale Ale and other beers at its production facilities in Petaluma and Chicago.

The first international target, he told Staff Writer Bill Swindell, is Mexico.

Lagunitas is a quintessential Sonoma County food and beverage success story, its reputation built on quality ingredients and attention to detail and burnished by its generous support of local programs and charities. The challenge going forward will be retaining its agrarian authenticity with finicky craft beer drinkers while scaling up production to compete on a global stage still dominated by huge corporate breweries such as Anheuser-Busch.

Despite some catty snap reactions to Tuesday’s announcement, there’s reason to believe that Magee and his team can strike that balance.

After all, Lagunitas isn’t inventing the path to larger markets - or to new business affiliations.

The ongoing consolidation of Sonoma County’s other beverage industry - this year alone, large companies purchased the Benziger Family Winery, J Vineyards and Winery and the B.R. Cohn Winery - has dramatically expanded its domestic and international reach without adversely affecting the reputation of premium local wines.

Likewise, Amy’s Kitchen, a well-regarded Sonoma County company that makes organic and vegetarian microwave meals, kept its reputation as it grew from a local favorite to a top national brand. Amy’s is now adding fast-food to its portfolio, beginning with its recently opened - and usually crowded - drive-thru restaurant in Rohnert Park. More outlets are in the works, according to Amy’s co-founder Andy Berliner.

Magee, whose name often follows the word outspoken in news stories, presented the partnership with Heineken as a natural progression for the West Coast’s craft-brewing movement.

“This is not the end of anything at all at Lagunitas, except maybe it is the end of the beginning, meaning that we are now standing at the threshold of an historic opportunity to export the excitement and vibe of American-born craft brewing and meet beer-lovers all over the planet Earth, our true homeland,” he wrote on his blog. “This could one day even be seen as a crucial victory for American craft brewing.”

We’ll drink to that.