State-owned Budejovicky Budvar could be partially sold off with a strategic shareholder preferably brought in, Czech minister of agriculture Petr Gandalovic said in a debate on the country’s public television network.

And the leading candidate to buy into the brewery?

American Anheuser-Busch, brewer of Budweiser, according to the Financial Times.

Two bankers indicated that Heineken would also be interested in the brewery, but that A-B had better reason to pay the high price the Czech’s are seeking.

Trademark issues surrounding the Budweiser name, the first banker said, constitute grounds for A-B to pay a premium for the company. A-B, he said, would resolve the issue and save the company some $25 million in legal costs per year: “more than the net income of [Budejovicky Budvar].”

A company source at Budvar declined to comment on potential bidders. The company source did confirm earlier reports that the firm is being converted into a joint-stock company. The ministry of agriculture, the company source said, has selected a financial and a legal advisor and is now looking for a Czech auditor. The company source emphasized that the ministry of agriculture the privatization process.

The agricultural minster said these steps would help assure that Budvar’s trademark is protected.

Oskar Blues – the Lyons, Colo., brewpub that produced a modest 650 barrels in 2002 before it began to package beers in cans – is taking steps to open a second brewery.

Best known for producing Dale’s Pale Ale, the brewery sold almost 8,500 barrels in 2006 and is on track to produce nearly 15,000 barrels in 2007.

The company will lease an 18,000 square feet space in nearby Longmont. The building will house a 50-barrel brewery, 10 fermenters, other tanks, and a new and faster canning line.

This new brewery will handle the brewing and packaging of all of the canned and kegged beer. Capacity of the new facility will be about 30,000 barrels.

The brewery in Lyons will continue to brew beer for our popular brewpub. This will mean a wider range of beers in the pub.

“These days our made-in-house supplies are limited because we spend most of our time on our three canned goods. Our locals are getting a little testy about it,” spokeman Marty Jones wrote in an e-mail.

Brewpub pioneer John Hickenlooper has sold his share of Wynkoop Holdings, which operates seven Denver restaurants, to his employees.

Observers estimated that Hickenlooper, the mayor of Denver since 2003, received in the neighborhood of $7 million for his 40% share of some of the best-known eateries in Denver.

Hickenlooper and the late Russell Schehrer founded Wynkoop Brewing in 1988 and soon opened or consulted on the opening of dozens of other brewpubs across the country. The Wynkoop influence can still be seen and tasted in brewpubs from San Francisco to Buffalo, N.Y.

The Rocky Mountain News reports:

Lee Driscoll, CEO of Wynkoop Holdings Inc. and the second- largest shareholder of the restaurants, with 35%, said there are initially six new owners.

But there will be about 20 owners when shares are granted to managers of the restaurants, head chefs, and other key executives and longtime employees, he said. However, it will not be an employee stock ownership plan, in which every employee typically can own shares, he said.

Hickenlooper said he first learned about the offer about a month ago.

“They were pretty far down the planning before they approached me,” Hickenlooper said.

Hickenlooper had been laid off from his job as a geologist in 1986 and shortly thereafter visited Falling Rock (soon to be called Triple Rock) Ale House in Berkeley, Calif. There was a line out the door on a Wednesday night, and Hickenlooper — who began homebrewing in 1971 — was taken by the concept of serving fresh beer brewed on the premises.

He borrowed a book on writing a business plan from the library, hooked up with Schehrer (the 1985 American Homebrewers Association Homebrewer of the Year) and, a mere two years later, Wynkoop was open.