Former owners of 21st Amendment Brewery, Nico Freccia (left) and Shaun O’Sullivan, pose for a photo at their massive San Leandro facility, as photographed in 201. 21st Amendment Brewery has been purchased by Philadelphia’s Evil Genius Beer Company.
Brant Ward/The Chronicle
Former owners of 21st Amendment Brewery, Nico Freccia (left) and Shaun O’Sullivan, sip an IPA brewed at their San Leandro facility in 2015. 21st Amendment Brewery has been purchased by Philadelphia’s Evil Genius Beer Company.
Brant Ward/The Chronicle
San Francisco born 21st Amendment Brewery brewery has a new owner.
21st Amendment Brewery
After going dark in November, the iconic San Francisco-born 21st Amendment Brewery has come back under a new owner: Evil Genius Beer Company of Philadelphia.
Evil Genius owner Luke Bowen told the Chronicle that his company took over 21st Amendment in late 2025 — and that the company’s popular beers, such as Hell or High Watermelon wheat ale and the hoppy Brew Free or Die IPA, are again being sold in the Bay Area.
“The packaging is not changing; the ingredients are not changing. Nothing about the beer is changing. We’re leaving everything exactly as it is,” Bowen said.
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Bowen declined to state how much Evil Genius paid for 21st Amendment’s intellectual property, recipes and distribution rights, due to a nondisclosure agreement. (The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that was a “seven-figure deal.”) The deal did not include 21st Amendment’s San Francisco taproom or enormous San Leandro brewing facility.
The move is an unusual instance in which a smaller brewery purchased a larger one; at its peak, 21st Amendment was distributed nationwide, while Evil Genius previously distributed regionally, to states such asMichigan, New York and Massachusetts. “And soon to California,” Bowen said.
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21st Amendment’s popular beers are currently being brewed at Evil Genius’ Philadelphia brewery. Bowen said that his team is working to find a new Bay Area brewing headquarters for the reborn 21st Amendment before expanding into different states. Test batching began in December, with brewing resuming around the end of February, so that beer could be shipped to California in time for 21st Amendment’s yearly Hell or High Watermelon seasonal release, from April through September. “It seemed like the natural time to relaunch the company and give our brewing team enough time to dial in the recipes,” Bowen said. “Our team was very jazzed about this.”
Bowen and business partner Trevor Hayward founded Evil Genius in 2011. It became a notable player in Philadelphia’s craft beer scene with its hoppy “Stacy’s Mom” IPA, Mexican-style lagers and beers with fruit flavors, such as its “I Love Lamp” pineapple wheat beer. Evil Genius and 21st Amendment shared distributors in Pennsylvania, which had been 21st Amendment’s second largest market behind California. 21st Amendment Brewery co-founder Shaun O’Sullivan, who has family in Philadelphia, was acquainted with Evil Genius before purchase talks began, Bowen said.
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21st Amendment, named after the constitutional change repealing Prohibition, opened in 2000 and is considered one of San Francisco’s craft beer pioneers. Nico Freccia and Sullivan, then a pair of ambitious homebrewers, opened their first taproom on Second Street in South Park. Its flavored beers and hopped IPAs became local favorites as craft beer boomed in the Bay Area and across the country. 21st Amendment expanded with its large-scale production brewery in San Leandro in 2015, which multiplied the company’s local brewing output fivefold, to more than 375,000 barrels at launch with enough room to double production within five years.
By 2025, craft beer’s outlook changed drastically. Freccia previously told the Chronicle that the company’s sales had declined by 20% every year since 2021. Competition from canned beer alternatives, such as canned cocktails and hard seltzers, pressured the company’s sales. A Gallup poll from 2025 found that Americans are drinking at a 90-year low. 21st Amendment’s shutdown in November 2025 led to the loss of 76 jobs across its San Francisco taproom and San Leandro brewing facility.
21st Amendment’s purchase is the most recent sale of a Bay Area beer company. In March, Central Coast beer company Firestone Walker acquired Berkeley’s Trumer Brewery, which will close on May 29. To survive the downturn in drinking, some Bay Area breweries, such as Almanac, have positioned their taprooms as events and social spaces.
Bowen said that it is a challenging time for the craft beer industry, but that his brewery is currently doing well. He believes that consumers are making the move away from mass-produced beers to more established offerings from brands like his or 21st Amendment.
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“The death of craft beer is overly exaggerated,” Bowen said. “It’s not so much a downturn, but a move to better stuff.”