Long Island’s iconic beer distributor Clare Rose sold to Southern Glazer’s

The company that put a Budweiser on nearly every bar top and tailgate on Long Island is changing hands.

Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits, the world’s largest beverage alcohol distributor, has reached an agreement to acquire substantially all the assets of Clare Rose Inc., the dominant beer and beverage distributor serving Nassau and Suffolk counties for more than nine decades, the companies announced.

The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2026. Clare Rose’s operations will be absorbed into Southern Glazer’s Beverage Company of New York, the company’s dedicated state division.

Southern Glazer’s said it plans to continue running the business out of Clare Rose’s existing Yaphank facility.

For generations of Long Islanders, Clare Rose has been the invisible engine behind the region’s drinking culture — the company whose trucks delivered Budweiser, Busch Light, Michelob ULTRA, Stella Artois and a long list of other popular beers to bars, restaurants, delis and stadiums from Montauk to Mineola.

If you cracked a Bud Light at a backyard cookout or a Heineken at a dive bar on the South Shore, Clare Rose almost certainly put it there.

The company was founded by Clare and Millie Rose. At its beginning, it was a small soda distribution operation in eastern Suffolk County.

But it grew fairly quickly into Long Island’s premier distributor of Anheuser-Busch InBev and Heineken USA products, eventually serving more than 4,500 retail and hospitality customers across both counties.

Today, the company is led by Sean Rose — the third generation of the family at the helm.

Clare Rose, the company’s namesake founder, was as much a Long Island institution as the brands he moved.

To locals in Patchogue and Blue Point, he was less a corporate figure than a fixture of the South Shore itself — most recognizable not in a boardroom, but behind the wheel of his signature Plum Crazy Purple Plymouth Prowler. Open-wheeled and gleaming, the low-slung hot rod became a kind of rolling emblem to Long Island’s beer king.

The transaction includes the right to distribute Anheuser-Busch’s full Long Island portfolio — spanning legacy beers; fast-growing hard beverages such as Cutwater Spirits, NÜTRL Vodka Seltzer and BeatBox Beverages; and the company’s new Phorm Energy drink line. Products from Tilray Brands, Pabst Brewing Company and other suppliers are also included.

“For more than 90 years, Clare Rose has proudly served Long Island with unwavering dedication to our customers, brands, and community,” Sean Rose said in a statement. He called Southern Glazer’s “another multi-generational family company that shares our values, our commitment to people, and our passion for building great brands.”

Wayne E. Chaplin, president and CEO of Southern Glazer’s, said Clare Rose’s “long-standing reputation for operational excellence” made the acquisition a natural fit for the company’s growth strategy.

Southern Glazer’s operates in 47 U.S. markets and Canada. The Clare Rose acquisition deepens its footprint in the New York metro area at a time when the beverage alcohol distribution landscape is consolidating rapidly.

For decades, Clare Rose thrived on West Avenue in Patchogue for 74 years — expanding its footprint even as the community weathered its long economic downturn, and remaining long enough to witness the early stirrings of the village’s revival.

By the time the company relocated to its current Yaphank facility in 2010, West Avenue had been renamed Clare Rose Blvd. in its honor.

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