Heineken acquires controlling shares in Oedipus brewery

NETHERLANDS – Dutch multinational brewing company, Heineken, is set to become the majority shareholder in the Amsterdam-based beer brewer Oedipus following the acquisition of the remaining shares of the company earlier this month.

Heineken had already bought a minority share in the Amsterdam craft brewery in 2019, four years after the brewery was established with an attached bar.

Oedipus Brewery is renowned for its colorful labels on beers, including Mannenliefde, Thai Thai, and Gaia. They later opened a second cafe location on Javaplein in Amsterdam-Oost.

According to Frederik van Droffelaar, the current business director at Oedipus, selling a stake to Heineken enabled them to rapidly switch from being focused on the hospitality industry, which was closed during the coronavirus pandemic, to supermarkets, which saw surging levels of sales.

He added that the total acquisition is especially welcome now as breweries struggle due to the booming costs of raw materials and electricity because of the war in Ukraine.

“We can’t avoid it; energy shortage, staff shortages, price increases, everything. I’m now very pleased with the cooperation with Heineken, so we can make use of their purchasing power. That brings stability,” Van Droffelaar explained.

Heineken has expressed its intent to maintain the essence of Oedipus’s operations even as the brewery plans to relocate to larger premises near its current location in Amsterdam-Noord, next year.

Large brewing companies are demonstrating increasing interest in craft beers. The alcoholic beverage giant snapped up London-based Beavertown.

Heineken took a £40m minority stake in Beavertown in 2018, after which the brewery almost tripled its sales from £12.7m in 2018 to £35.2m in the year to 31 March 2020.

The firm did this mainly by increasing production capacity, but also through a partnership with Tottenham Hotspur football club, where it opened a microbrewery.

Beavertown used the money raised from the 2018 share sale to expand the business, which included building a new brewery in Enfield.

Carlsberg bought the London Fields Brewery in 2017, although it closed the brewery in 2021 and tried to sell the business.

In 2015, AB-Inbev, the world’s biggest brewing group, bought the London-based Camden Town Brewery in an £85m deal, and in 2020 it completed its acquisition of the US-based Craft Brew Alliance.

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