"Craft or crafty? Consumers deserve to know the truth"

Lose their job or leave their job? Bottom line - jobs stayed. The people holding them changed.

 

All the stories at the time said nothing of the sort. In the official press release, the owner of Goose Island, John Hall, specifically wrote: "We had several options, but we decided to go with Anheuser Busch because it was the best. The transaction is good for our stakeholders, employees and customers." Given that Hall stayed on for over a year under AB ownership, it seems unlikely that he would specify his employees in that PR only to go in the next day and fire all of them.

The only notable employee who left GI at the time of AB's buyout was Hall's son/brewer, Greg Hall, and he left to start a cider company.

 

JK,

John Laffler who was in charge of the barrel aging program (which is a BIG deal at Goose Island) also left the company. I was able to meet and converse with John at a Goose Island event during Philly beer week. He is an extremely experienced and knowledgeable beer guy. He is also a ‘class act’ and a true gentlemen to speak to. IMHO, John’s leaving Goose Island is a disappointment for Goose Island. I wish John good luck in his next venture.

http://beeradvocate.com/community/t...oose-island-to-start-off-color-brewing.51959/

Cheers!

Jack

 

Yes, he left the company, over a year after it was bought by AB (and, one supposes, after he had cashed a number of payroll checks from AB in that time). And according to that very article he had been planning to start his own brewery since 2009 - 2 years before AB's purchase of GI.

I don't think that qualifies as falling under the concept of "everyone lost their job when AB took over GI".

I'm not in Chicago, so I don't know what sort of changes happened down on the production floor at the brewery but I think if AB had gone into that brewery and fired everyone, it might have made some news.

 

As, always. You da man!

Cheers!

 

Don't tell that to Brett Porter.

 

I think BMCs succeed because they've taken a watered down, extremely easily accessible product and managed to make it hyper-masculine. When you take your first sip of most any beer (with some exceptions) the one that tastes least-bad is going to bud light. Many of the pleasing flavors of beer are acquired, especially hops.

This jives with my theory that these companies can't come out with a porter or stout because it would be impossible to market. If it has more flavor, is dark, alluring, etc.. then what is it that they've been selling? I think, if this masculinity complex were turned on them, and I think it probably will be as profit driven big craft companies, and their marketing, come in to play, it could prove extremely troublesome for the big boys.

 

The big guys have made these beers, but you're right about not marketing them from what I can tell.

A-B
http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/29/8842
http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/29/31731
http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/29/34684

Coors
http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/306/79171
http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/306/88510

 

And from Miller in the mid-1990's:

 

There are actually fake small breweries which all along were part of a megabrewer, but what's causing the hate against genuine craft breweries which happen to be partially bought by megabrewers?

I'd be interested in the logic of how Widmer and Kona beers instantly ceased being craft beers and morphed into "faux-craft beers" simply by virtue of partial ownership. Would they have retained their "craft beers" status if they'd been bought by Kraft or General Electric instead of by the evildoers at Inbev?

What's the point of using the phrase "craft beer" if it's so utterly meaningless? A legitimate size-based definition of a craft beer would be batch size for each product, not the number of barrels of all products together sold by the parent company.

 

Brewbound has an article - Craft Versus Crafty Rages on in Chicago - about a talk by BBC's Jim Koch along with executives of Crown (Corona), Heineken USA and MC's Tenth & Blake division on the topic at a Beer Marketers Insights conference.

​

 

At this point anymore, I really don't give a fuck. What the hell is "craft" anyway? Look, my neighbors shuffle Toyotas, Budweiser and Big Macs up and down the street. They mow their lawns, go to the movies and take their kids to the park. I couldn't care less whether MillerCoors, or InBev or Dog fukkin Fish Head makes my beer. Do people treat me right? Do they invade my home? Do they piss on my Post Toasties? If they don't, I don't give a fuck.

 

I saw this in my local World Market. If this isn't crafty, I don't know what is.

 

What's next? Corked & Caged Budweiser from Anheuser-Busch?

(from 1904)

 

Very cheeky, Jess! I recall the Budweiser Michelob 'Special Edition' beer --wasn't it called "Celebrate"?-- back around 2002 and 2003, and the beer-lovin' males (and a few shy, sensitive wine gals who dabbled in beer) back then simply would not bite on it, so we ended up selling a couple of sets and being credited on several additional case allotments. There were also the Chocolate and Cherry and Vanilla-flavored bocks (?) around then, but we passed on the chance to carry those -- those bottles were just too much... not sure who they hoped to appeal to, but perhaps the Cognac crowd, owing to the frosted glass. Alizé had just hit the market.

 

Weren't those the ones that looked more like ammunition than beer? Probably too many being confiscated by Homeland Security over the Holidays after the luggage was X-Rayed.



"Sorry we're late, Pops - First, we had to catch a later flight cause we was locked in a room, and plus the darned gummit man poured out your present!"

 

Well, I suppose one man's artillery shell is another man's "adult novelty toy"?

At least the "Celebrate" bottle could've passed for a Scaldis Prestige (in a dimly-lit room), but it's worth noting that I have yet to see any of these in the collector's market or a bottle collection.

 

http://i.imgur.com/FuaxvPwl.jpg
FT: Budweiser in a champaign bottle: born on oct 28 00

CRAFT!