The Maine Brew Bus, which offers tours of breweries, wineries and distilleries in the Portland area, has bought out a smaller competitor.

The company announced Sunday it had acquired Maine Beer Tours, which offered similar all-inclusive brewery tours.

The purchase will increase Maine Brew Bus’s fleet to four 15-passenger buses and it will add at least five new employees. The company has expanded its summer and fall schedule, beginning in late May through October, with daily tours departing from Portland’s Old Port.

“We are very excited about this acquisition of Maine Beer Tours. We have admired their hard work with regard to local beer tourism, and adding their resources to our company complements our existing offerings,” Maine Brew Bus founder Zach Poole said in a news release.

Maine’s craft brewing industry has seen tremendous growth in the last decade. Last year, 82 members of the industry group Maine Brewers Guild brought in $150 million in revenue and employed 1,600 people, according to a recent University of Maine report. An estimated 35 percent of tourists in Maine visited a craft brewery or brew pub, according to the latest annual report from the Maine Office of Tourism.

Maine Brew Bus has capitalized on beer tourism. Its distinctive green buses offer more than a dozen regular tours across the Portland area and southern Maine. Tickets cost about $65 per person. On its website, the company said it ferried more than 5,300 guests in 2016.

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