Matt Brewing Co. Buys Maryland’s Flying Dog, Moving Production to Utica

Utica's F.X. Matt Brewery has purchased a popular beer brand in Maryland and will move its brewing production operation to Utica this summer.

Matt Brewery announced on Monday that it has purchased the Flying Dog Brewery in Frederick, Maryland and production of the brew will begin shifting to Utica this summer.

FX Matt CEO Fred Matt said in the announcement that Flying Dog offers his company “a great opportunity to grow in the Mid-Atlantic region.”

“Flying Dog has created an amazing brand, award-winning beers, and offers us a great opportunity to grow in the Mid-Atlantic Region.  When you think of craft beer in Maryland and the mid-Atlantic, Flying Dog is the first brand that pops into your head. We are excited to join forces with such a great brand and look forward to helping Flying Dog reach new heights,” said Matt according to a news release from Flying Dog Brewery. 

Flying Dog Brewery was founded in in 1990 in Aspen, Colorado and it moved to Maryland after the purchase of the Frederick Brewing Company in 2006.

Flying Dog has been known in the industry as a brand with artistic labels and creative language in branding over the years. Flying Dog has held free speech as one of its core values, even challenging the Michigan Liquor Authority's rejection of their "Raging Bitch" label for its 20th anniversary brew. "Flying Dog won its case in 2015 and was awarded a six-figure damages payment, which it used to establish the First Amendment Society," according to BrewBound.com.

In addition to Raging Bitch, Flying Dog’s lineup of beers has contained sexually explicit brands like "Doggie Style Pale Ale" and "Pearl Necklace Chesapeake Stout," according to BrewBound.

"Asked by Brewbound in 2017 about brand names that consumers may consider offensive in Flying Dog’s portfolio, CEO Jim Caruso replied: “The question is, ‘offensive to whom?’”

“Everybody has something subjective,” he said. “There is a free market, and it’s as much a marketplace of ideas as it is products, and over time … good products survive and bad products disappear off the shelves. That’s how it works,” he told BrewBound.

F.X. Matt Brewery is America's fourth oldest family-owned brewery, established in 1888. The brewery located in Utica's west-end touts the fact that it sold the very first beer in America after the end of prohibition on December 5, 1933, with the passage of the 21st Amendment to the Constitution.

F.X. Matt already has its own brand of flying beer, the Flying Bison. The Matts say they plan to keep a "Flying Dog" presence in Maryland, with an outlet planned to be opened there sometime in the near future.