Work has been quietly underway for some time, but now it’s official: Bear Republic and Drake’s Brewing are merging.

Rich and Tami Norgrove, owners of Cloverdale’s Bear Republic Brewing, famous for its Racer 5 IPA, joined forces with John Martin and Roy Kirkorian of Drake’s Brewing last week to say, “Racer 5 is shifting gears once again, beginning a new collaborative partnership with The Drake’s Brewing Co. The iconic West Coast IPA, once at the forefront of the California craft beer boom, is merging lanes to accommodate industry-wide challenges, while keeping a firm ‘pedal to the metal,’ moving forward.”

The deal they’ve signed means Drake’s will acquire Bear Republic’s recipes, formulas and intellectual property, and Drake’s will produce the full Bear Republic lineup of beers — including Racer 5 — as well as their other brands and new beers still in the pipeline. The goal? To bring Bear Republic Brewing into new markets and communities.

“We have always admired Drake’s Brewing Company’s passion for craft beer and their community as well as their commitment to quality,” Rich Norgrove said. “Joining forces with Drake’s will allow us to bring our beers to even more customers, and we’re excited to be a part of the Drake’s family.”

Norgrove will continue to represent the family-owned brewery in the manufacturing, production and sales of Bear Republic recipes. So it’s not a straight sale, as is often the case. Instead, as Norgrove explains it, it’s like “not coming in and buying the car, but buying the engine and driver.”

Norgrove and his longtime brewmaster, Peter Kruger, will continue to work with the Bear Republic brand, and production will continue in Cloverdale, but brewing will transition to San Leandro over the coming months.

When I spoke with Martin and Norgrove last week, they stressed that this deal “makes them both stronger.” The primary focus during the transition period will be on Bear Republic’s bestselling Racer 5, which accounts for 92% of sales, and the new Racer 7, a 7% hazy IPA.

Long-standing fixtures in the Bay Area brewing community, Norgrove and Martin — who launched Berkeley’s Triple Rock in 1986 with his brother Reid — are longtime friends. They’ve even shared some of the same brewers. They have distributors in common in some key markets as well, which will smooth the transition. The merger, Martin said, offers “so many cool things from a synergistic point of view.”

The good news for Bay Area beer lovers is that not only will Bear Republic beer continue to be brewed, it may become even easier to find.

Martin and Norgrove have already begun talking about future satellite locations in Sonoma County, akin to what Drake’s has done with Drake’s Dealership, the popular beer garden and restaurant in Oakland, and Drake’s The Barn in West Sacramento.

Drake’s origins date back to Lind Brewing, which was founded in 1989 by Roger Lind. By the time he sold the brewery to a local coffee company a decade later, it was producing Drake’s beers, so the new owners changed the name to match. Martin and Kirkorian purchased Drake’s in 2008 and began opening taprooms and beer gardens soon after, including Drake’s Barrel House in 2011, Drake’s Dealership in 2016 and The Barn in 2018.

Rich and Tami Norgrove, along with his parents, Richard and Sandy, launched Bear Republic in 1995. By 1999, they had begun collecting awards at the Great American Beer Festival, including a gold medal that year for Racer 5, one of the first popular West Coast-style IPAs, and small brewing company and brewer of the year awards in 2006. For a few years, they were running their original brewpub in downtown Healdsburg, a second brewpub in Rohnert Park and a larger production brewery in Cloverdale. After landlord issues closed the Healdsburg location in 2019, and the pandemic lockdown shuttered the Rohnert Park brewpub, the company began focusing solely on packaged beer and distribution.