Rest in peace Wild Goose. Flying Dog Ales confirmed today it will no longer produce the 21-year-old brand, which it has owned since 2006.
Ben Savage, vice president of marketing, said their Frederick brewery has run out of space to produce both Wild Goose and Flying Dog.
"The bottom line is we only have so much capacity here at the brewery and the market is demanding Flying Dog as our main push," he said. "There's no room to produce Wild Goose anymore."
The company will continue to produce Wild Goose IPA into the 1st quarter of 2011, Savage added. But the IPA's future is unknown beyond that point.
The Wild Goose Snow now in stock is the last batch the brewery will make.
Flying Dog's Frederick brewery, which has a capacity of 80,000 barrels, had produced just Wild Goose until 2008, when the company shut down its Denver facility and moved operations to Maryland.
While they ran side by side for two years, Wild Goose's popularity declined and Flying Dog's market share increased, Savage said. The brewery now produces 82 different packages of Flying Dog there, and may soon add more.
The company had been inching towards shutting down the brand for a while.
"Over the past two years, we've headed towards this decision because Flying Dog is our focus," he said.
Savage acknowledged Wild Goose had a pretty good fan base, but he also said Flying Dog had a bigger one.
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Beer in Baltimore notes Flying Dog made attempts at keeping the brand alive - such as a re-introducing the original yeast strains, and a packaging redesign. But, solidifying production in one location might have been the brand's final straw.
Savage said the company won't shut down the door on the brand entirely and may bring it back if there is demand.