Devils Backbone Brewing Company Partners with Anheuser-Busch

This is no different then the banking acquisitions in the mid-90s. Big banks gobbling up many of the mid-sized regionals.

Only difference with beer, is the best beers in last 3 or so years are cropping up in all these tiny mom & pop breweries everywhere around the country now and sticking with the local distro. model instead of grandeous growth strategy. Big investors/big beer probably doesn't have any interest in grabbing the tiny brewers pumping out the best stuff these days (i.e. most of the brewers in the top 250).

 

On the plus side, maybe it will be possible to get DBB at Nats Park, instead of ABI filling all the "craft" taps (other than the ones at the DC beer stand) with GI.

 

What may be most interesting is looking at the top 200 breweries in the country over a 3-4 year span, and see how the BBL/yr works in regards to % that got bought out by Big Beer.

It's not just the total #s that they buy, but the market share, the marketability, their existing fanbase. It really has to be a lot more than 2ths of 1%.

 

Some interesting ideas and points. They surely got the market share when they bought those they have acquired, but I think their plan may be a bit larger than just market share. I suspect they are looking to acquire places which are strategically located within critical geographical regions through out the country so that they can use excess brewing capacity at their existing network of Bud breweries to make and ship fresh flagship beers through their existing network while supporting their new acquisition with investments in expansion, etc. and being able to use the brewing talent to anticipate and keep up with the trends in popular tastes. We flavorful beer drinkers are a fickle lot who don't have much brand loyalty.

 

Exactly. I've had a few DB beers and none of them was anything I'd buy again.

 

Anybody else notice some drastically extensive editing on founder Steve Crandall's Facebook letter to the fans? The original version he posted yesterday was much more emotional and vitriolic; he called out critics for being selfish for demanding that their favorite brewery remain local and small-scale rather than advance their successful business; he said that DB is a brewing company, not a punk band, and that selling-out is a dead term that applied to 90's anti-establishmentism, not modern businesses; he reiterated the point that this brewery is the livelihood of himself and all the employees, and trying to expand that livelihood isn't something one should have to apologize for.

I guess either he calmed down a lot or his new bosses got to him, but the letter as it stands now is watered down and much less heartfelt. Hopefully the same thing doesn't happen to their beer.

 

Bummer. Their beers werent out of this world, but theyve been in NC less than a year so I couldnt speak about one-offs & taproom releases. They just put out a collab 12 pack a few months ago with a bunch of big name INDEPENDENT craft brewers, sad to see this occur.

I dont know anything about him, but I just cant get behind that metaphor. Selling out is DEFINITELY not a dead term, & to infer it only applied to the "90s anti-establishment "punk bands"" is just asinine (note the double quote). I understand the money aspect, but is that really what this whole thing is all about? /rant

 

Brewbound recently estimated that AB's "High End" division is approaching 1 million bbl/yr (or about 1% of ABI's US total), but, as noted, that includes Stella Artois - and possibly other ABI's "Import Brands Alliance" beers? - Shock Top and Virtue Cider, but even subtracting those and...

That sounds impressive at first, but a lot of the "ex-craft" H.E. total has come from the regional expansion and growth of the GI brands, rather than the newly acquired breweries' brands. And, the middle section of the Top 10 "Craft Brewers" means only about 3% of the "craft" segment - the equivalent of, say, Gambrinus which last year was #5, and whose 676k barrelage gave them 3.05% of the market.

 

I could be misquoting a bit, since I'd read the letter a day earlier before it was amended. But yeah, he probably realized he was a little out of line. He did make a good point though about how the "partnership" is about people's livelihoods, and he has to think of that before he worries about damn-the-Man ideals that only keep the brewery from reaching it's potential.

 

Well, supposedly Jason is at least for now on board:

https://charlottesville29.com/

 

“We caught up with Jason Oliver, longtime Brewmaster of Devils Backbone, for his perspective on the sale and to confirm he plans to remain with the brewery. “I am staying on and have no interest in going anywhere,” says Oliver. “We were courted by several groups and I advocated for ABI (Anheuser-Busch) since the beginning. I knew we would lose street cred but what we would gain outweighed that.” One gain, Oliver says, is even better beer. “The beer will continue to improve and be better for this deal. It may seem weird to say that the beer will improve but that should be the goal of every brewery. To think your beer is perfect is to assert it isn’t, in my opinion.” How can the beer improve? “The shelf life can always increase, the consistency can always be improved,” says Oliver.”

Cheers to Jason Oliver for his ability to consider a broader perspective!!

 

I'm not one to think In Bev is automatically the bogey man. What brewery have they acquired that they've destroyed? They didn't destroy GI, the distro has improved dramatically, this years events wasn't a systemic failure, just a shit happens thing. They want market share ? Well of course they do, buy what you like, if what they have you don't like and buy it will change. Incentives asides the buyer has the power here, always will. Buy what you like pass on what you don't, it's a self leveling thing the way I see it.

 

The GI distro has displaced other distro. For example at our local MLB ballpark. I guess DBB won't, because those taps have already gone to GI.

 

Some final thoughts (although this sounds like my thoughts on Breckenridge and BP) for this thread.

I'm reading lots of posts about hoping for quality not to suffer. That has never been my concern. If you visit a beer store or grocery store at least once a week like I do, or even talk with brewery owners once in awhile, you sort of know how devilish AB INBEV can be on the distribution front. Even independent brewery reps have told me some horror stories. This is all a distribution and tap handle play. They jumped years of work competing against that crap, had some owners make BANK, and now want everything to go as normal? Sounds about right. Think about your grocery store options for once. I guess fans of DBB would want to see this beer everywhere regardless, so I guess that optimism can be appreciated. How they got to that point doesn't feel right in my eyes. The bullied becomes the bully.

Yet it felt like the bullied was about to win, or was winning.

@nc41, I don't see the buyer having total power though. Many places only serve GI IPA now because of discounted keg prices. It's a cutthroat business out there where many restaurants and bars are also reluctant to add more tap handles.

The way I see it. If buyers were reluctant to buy GI IPA and want places to "change", I just don't see them substituting that for a regional non AB competitor. I don't think a high demand for a local GABF gold medal winning IPA would get some places to get it on tap. There's a thin line between drinking what's provided and really having a say, or thinking demand would dictate sales. I'm seeing lesser quality local beers taking over taps against other local beers. So to get a leg up, I'm sure many places would sell themselves out too. Or some just work a bit harder, or hope quality does win out.

Every breweries dream is to get their beers everywhere (to share, in a homebrewers sense). AB INBEV basically said, "that isn't going to happen so easily. Why not join our team?". It always feels like hush money in a sense. The bullied becoming the bully. They said "your beer is never getting into company A,b,c, or d without a huge fight. Here's a couple million and you can just walk away". It's funny when I can call the bully the one paying the bullied. Craft took a couple million away from AB INBEV.. For that I thank them. Now we can move onto others that need our help.

Back to quality for a second. I think it'll take some time but I think cracks will form when employees realize what all their hard work is going into. It feels like its paying off initially as distro expands. But after awhile, it'll be like any other corporate job out there. I've never not seen passion suffer when something like this happens (unless they all got raises). Now I'm not even sure you can taste passion, much like hype, so the actual beer quality may never suffer. But the environment around it will be changing, whether they believe it or not.

 

I'm not thinking taps here I was thinking cans and bottles, but it applies to taps too. If I go into a bar and don't like the tap offerings I buy a bottle. If I don't care for a beer I buy a glass of wine or I have a bourbon. I'm not protesting InBev at all I buy what I want , I control what I buy their marketing doesn't impact me at all. They could put up all all Bud crap, and I'll have a Red Zin, and I'm ok with that . I'll buy what I want when I want too, plenty of options all the way around. They impact the business owners no doubt , more than likely chain places, but it really doesn't impact me all that much, the bars I go to aren't influenced. So now if there's a DB tap takeover it's an In Bev deal, but then ownership is cool with that , he's still brewing their beer. So... How is InBev the bad guy here, both parties are happy, the product isn't altered , so how is this a loss?

 

Yeah. I saw this when they posted it yesterday. I would hope Jason stays because he is a huge reason for their success but the response he gave seemed a bit like that is what he was expected to say. I think he will seen how the transition goes and if it does not go the way he is hoping (or was promised) then he will definitely look to move. I would expect he will be able to tell relatively soon after the official transition whether he can see himself really in it for the long haul. at the very least I hope he gets a good piece of the pie in the buyout whether he sticks with DBB or not.

 

Stop the investigation, bring no charges, have no trial. He's guilty, isn't he?