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A bright spot in California craft and much admired reinvention of a storied Old World lager brand will have new stewards as it enters its next chapter. Trumer Pils will soon come under the wing of Firestone Walker, which is acquiring brand rights and production, the co announced today. Sadly, however, current Trumer owner Gambrinus will be closing the Berkeley facility where it's produced Trumer since 2004. But as costs rise and capacity looms industry wide, this could be a win-win for both buyer and seller. This is now Firestone's second notable brand acquisition with a strong focus in its home state of CA. It comes about 5 yrs after the co bought the fruited wheat beer brand Cali Squeeze, which it built into a much larger entity in the years since. Cali Squeeze volume more than quintupled from 8K bbls in 2020 to around 50K bbls in 2025. In its last yr at Gambrinus, Trumer ticked up another 1% in 2025, nearing 26,800 bbls. While long a draft favorite in CA, the Trumer brand fam grew off-premise $$ by 3.4% in NIQ data in 2025. Can Firestone boost its momentum from here as it assumes total US operations?As US craft grew quickly between 2010 and 2015, Trumer at first grew with it, reaching about 31K bbls by 2014. But it started faltering faster than the segment, outshone by local upstart brands and bigger, more heavily hopped beers. It slipped back to 24K bbls by 2019 and took an especially tough hit in 2020. It's grown every year since, tho, riding and in part driving increased interest in balanced, well-made lagers.Brought to the US by Gambrinus founder Carlos Alvarez over 20 yrs ago, the Trumer brand has much older roots, recall. The original Trumer Privatbrauerei began brewing just outside of Salzburg, Austria in 1601, 6 years before the Jamestown colony was settled in Virginia. The year before America's founding in 1775, a hops merchant named Josef Sigl acquired the brewery and his family still owns and operates it today. "We are very pleased that the quality of Trumer Pils is so widely appreciated in the United States, and that we have been able to partner with Firestone Walker &mdash; a brewery that shares our values and has always put quality and family first," eighth generation owner Seppi Sigl commented about the transition."Some beers are timeless," Firestone Walker CEO Nick Firestone said, reflecting on Carlos' "love" of the brand and its "deep lineage. Our job now is simple: protect what makes it special and make sure this great beer continues to reach American drinkers," he continued. Trumer production will come under the wing of "internationally recognized" Firestone brewmaster Matt Brynildson, who's built his own well-respected pilsners over the years, including Firestone's Pivo Pils. "Entrusting the brand to a family brewery that understands this responsibility was very important to us," Gambrinus CEO John Brozovich said of the transition. "Firestone Walker approaches brewing with the same respect for tradition and quality, and we are confident they will carry Trumer Pils forward with great care," he added.The move comes as both Gambrinus and Firestone work to shore up their core beer bizzes. Both Shiner and Firestone volumes declined steeply last yr, losing share of craft and total beer. Trumer was a bright spot for Gambrinus, but operating a separate, smaller facility half the country away just for that brand could not have been cheap for the Texas-based co. Impact on jobs at Trumer's brewery in Berkeley remains unclear at press time. This news follows just a few days after the co announced introduction of LandShark vodka seltzer RTDs in select states. Do these shifts signal the beginning of a new, more adventurous chapter for the co?

Firestone Walker Acquires Trumer Pils from Gambrinus; Berkeley Brewery to Close

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