Most craft brewers don’t start their business thinking about exit strategies. They aren’t dreaming of mergers, acquisitions, balance sheets, or EBITDA. They’re dreaming of barley. Of mash tuns and hops so fragrant you want to roll in them. Of beers so good they silence a room. Maybe, if the stars align, they’re dreaming of enough loyal customers to keep the lights on and the fermenters humming.

So when Steve Navarro, homebrewer turned head brewer, walked into a meeting with Brent Hall of Pinnacle Capital Partners, he wasn’t pitching a tech startup. He was resurrecting a ghost—the long-defunct but legendary Pacific Brewing and Malting Co. of Tacoma. And Hall, perhaps expecting spreadsheets and ROI jargon, instead got hit square in the soul with Navarro’s sheer, giddy, foam-streaked passion. So much so that he joined as a co-founder. Because sometimes, a dream is contagious.

Fast-forward a year. Pacific Brewing isn’t just brewing. It’s winning medals, packing its taproom, and clearly contemplating something every successful craft brewer eventually must: What’s next?

And the answer, as it turns out, is a little north, a little complicated, and a lot ambitious.

In a move both exhilarating and anxiety-inducing (and possibly orchestrated by a cabal of caffeinated brewers in the dead of night), Pacific Brewing has agreed to acquire all assets of American Brewing Company in Edmonds. That’s right—Tacoma has just annexed Edmonds, or at least the brewing portion of it.

This is no hostile takeover, no soulless megabrew consolidation. It’s a bit more like co-habitation with benefits. American Brewing, with its 30-barrel brewing system and 5,000 barrels of unused capacity, becomes the new production arm for several Pacific Brewing brands. Meanwhile, Pacific’s cozy downtown Tacoma home will continue its legacy of pilot batches, seasonal experiments, and yeast-growing voodoo.

Steve Navarro will now pull double duty, overseeing brewing operations in both locations, which means more commuting, more spreadsheets, and probably a few existential mornings on the ferry, wondering how the hell this all happened so fast. (“It happened in a month,” he says. “A month!”)

Back in Tacoma, Bethany Carlsen—originally slated to take the reins at the new Gig Harbor Brewing Company—returns as Pacific Brewing’s head brewer, graduating from assistant to captain of the kettle. Adam Frantz remains the brewing force behind American Brewing in Edmonds.

And yes, it’s all official(ish): paperwork filed, public company disclosures made, and pending thumbs-up from the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board. But the vibe remains unmistakably craft. Navarro insists, with the intensity of a man who’s been hugging a fermenter for the last hour, “Pacific Brewing is still here. Still Tacoma. Still independent.”

And in case you’re wondering: no, no money terms were disclosed. Not because they’re hiding something, but because American Brewing is a public company, which means all those juicy financial details are tucked neatly into a Form 8-K for shareholders to decode over their morning oatmeal stout.

The bigger picture? American Brewing gets to focus solely on non-alcoholic beverages (they recently acquired the Búcha kombucha company out of California), while Pacific Brewing gets a serious upgrade in production muscle, all without sacrificing its core identity or connection to the city it calls home.

“We’re going to actively grow both brands,” Navarro says. And you can almost hear his brain whirring. This isn’t expansion by ego. It’s expansion by necessity. By opportunity. By yeast cell count.

So yes, it’s a little complicated. But it’s also the story of craft beer growing up—without selling out. Of brewers learning to run businesses without forgetting why they started brewing in the first place. And of two Washington brands joining forces not to consolidate, but to elevate.

Now, let’s look at some photos from Pacific Brewing’s first anniversary bash—where, by all accounts, half of Tacoma showed up, the taps flowed freely, and no one suspected that, just beyond the laughter and lacing, the brewery was already plotting its next chapter. One pint, one partnership, one slightly terrifying expansion at a time.