Big Beer's Plan to Sell to Consumers Who Hate Them

The best way to reject anything, with your dollars

 

Better than a restaurant that has Blue Moon and Shock Top on their "Craft Menu"

 

I'm loyal to all beers. I give each one a chance.

 

This guy doesn't get it ... the reason many small breweries don't have an advertising budget is because they never put it in their business plan and it worked for them because of organic growth not stupid stunts.

 

As long as the beer is good, I don't care

 

I've even seen Michelob listed that way too.

 

@besch64 Michelob was for the longest time aimed at the connoisseur of beer.

 

I used to subscribe to the 'who cares if it taste good' mantra but more and more I am coming to realize that craft beer culture means alot to me and these large corporate acquisitions will damage this culture. I withhold my beer budget for truely independent brands and don't feel elitist or snobby about it at all. Duvel Moorgat aside, always loved their stuff.

 

I'm thankful that my beer bar is subsidized by macro drinkers. They can afford to get stuff worth going out of my way for, and everyone's happy. Oh, and they make a shit ton of money.

 

I wonder if the restaurant rejects wines, spirits, food, etc that sold out to "big-fill-in-the-blank"?

 

Wine and spirits are different markets, different histories, and different cultures.

 

Duvel Moorgat has only craft beers in their portfolio and I'm pretty sure it's a family owned business. So, it's not even close to being owned by AB/InBev. They just need to hurry up and bring Firestone Walker to SC.

 

My guess? Maybe some but the only way to get non-big business food is to grow it yourself or go the farmer or rancher yourself. And yes, some say they do it, but if they get everything from a farmer or a rancher, they don't have time to run a restaurant that's open for more than one meal a day.

 

As brief as it is, I must admit I had a hard time staying awake to read the entire article. Zzzzzz

 

This really qualifies as "Beer News"? One restaurant doesn't buy a keg of Ballast Point because they sold to Constellation?

Oh, wait - that restaurant's "Essex bar" menu notes they sell Olympia (listed as "WA" but it hasn't been brewed there since the early 2000's when Miller closed the former Olympia brewery) a beer owned by Pabst and brewed by MillerCoors outside Los Angeles, and Tecate, a Mexican brand owned by Heineken - #3 in the World (at least until ABInBev swallows SABMiller), an international brewing company more than 10 times larger than the US-only Constellation.

 

I took note of one paragraph from the article that I thought was poignant:

“When you think about craft you think about the people making these beers and then when you think of AB InBev you think of a big stainless steel, cold, humanless factory,” said Jackie Dodd, an award-winning blogger who posts as The Beeroness. “That might be one of the things people are worried about -- don’t take the soul out of my beer.”

I think the Marketing & Sales folks at the mega-brewing companies have their work cut out for them here. How can they effectively market that their beers have “soul”?

Cheers!

 

Why would he reject that. The beer won't change overnight. Let the customers make that decision then decide. He could be saying no to a hot seller.

 

If the godfather of soul, James Brown, was still alive, AB InBev could buy him, that's how. But Aretha is alive.

 

It's not going to matter to me how they market their acquisitions. I don't drink beers owned by the Big Beer corporations because of their aggressive marketing tactics that attempt to make it harder for independent breweries to succeed.

It's one thing to promote your products. It's another thing altogether to try to harm your competitors.