Asahi to buy Fullers

Ugh!

 

In most (all?) cases a result of spin-off deals resulting from the ABInBev takeover of SABMiller, Asahi also owns Meantime in the UK, as well as Peroni, Grolsch, Pilsner Urquell, Topvar, Ursus, Dreher, Piwowarska and Baltika.
see Asahi Overseas - Europe

Measured by volume, their 2018 Factbook put Asahi at #7 worldwide with a barrelage of 5.9 Million KL (~50 Million US beer barrels), behind ABInBev, Heineken, China Resources, Carlsberg, Molson Coors and Tsingtao.

 

I know it's a bit of a different circumstance, but I hope Fuller doesn't go the way of Young's.

 

Wow this is sad. It wasn’t long ago that a trip to London meant mostly visiting a Young’s or Fuller’s pub. Both now gone the way of sell out. All in all the London beer scene is better than it’s ever been so I guess this is part of the price of progress.
Visited the Fullers brewery 5 years ago outside London and the place was a gorgeous unspoiled museum to UK brewing...that will probably survive for awhile hopefully... still love a few of the classic Fullers pubs — anyone been to the Churchill Arms over by Notting Hill? Amazing spot w/so much history and great Thai food to go along w/ the real ale. Anybody have any other favorite Fuller’s pubs they’ll think twice about visiting now?

 

This is so depressing. Fullers is one of the only really great English beers we can get in my area, and now I'll never get to the legendary pubs I've heard so much about over the years.

 

Why not? The pubs will still exist and under the same Fuller management while, at this point, the beers will remain the same, brewed at the same brewery under Asahi ownership, and continue to be served at the Fuller-owned pubs.

While it hasn't been that long, not much has changed at the other European breweries owned by Asahi that I've read of.

 

Let's hope!

 

Yeah, well, maybe you should start looking for airfares to Gatwick, just in case (well, as soon as they start paying the US air traffic controllers again).

Of course, last time I was pub-crawling in the UK, the BIG SIX dominated the market (but not the pubs we favored) and they're all gone - Allied, Bass, Courage, S&N, Watney and Whitbread. Tho' even a few them still did make some fine cask ales and bottled beers.

 

Coming soon to a bottle shop near you:

 

I'm curious whether any of our UK BA's saw this coming...

 

If you live on the east coast Norwegian Air has absurdly low pices into Gatwidk. I paid less than $300 round trip from Boston last fall and I think prices are even lower at the moment. Given the strength of the dollar to the pound - it may be the best point in modern times to hit up an extended London /UK crawl. I highly recommend a tri city crawl London to York to Edinburgh over a week or so time. A straight shot north/south w/ a couple hour train ride each leg — and three great but unique pub/real ale cultures. I’ve done that tour three times and am thinking of making it four this year. Cheers to real ale.

 

No! But perhaps the signs were there when I started noticing London Pride everywhere in Asia a few years ago. All over the place in Japan. I guess Asahi are going to push it more in China

 

I was a fan of The Red Lion as well.

 

I am going to say something that some will not agree with. Sometimes, a brand is not just about quality, it is about allure. One year at the Outer Banks on vacation, I bought some Red Stripe thinking that if I could not be in the Caribbean, at least I could drink a beer like I was there. As I was texting a coworker about my drink, I turned the bottle around and read the label. It said . . . brewed in Latrobe, PA, not far from where I live. Totally ruined the moment.

When I want an English beer, I would rather it be brewed by an English company because it is the closest that I can get to being there. I do not want a Japanese company controlling an English brewery.

Frankly, I detest these conglomerates buying up the best. Hopefully, Asahi will not ruin Fullers. But unfortunately . . . the allure is gone.

 

But previous to being brewed in Latrobe (as well as in Canada, by Moosehead), when it was brewed in Jamaica, the brewery, Desnoes & Geddes, was majority-owned by an Irish and later a UK-based company - first Guinness and then, after their merger with Grand Met, Diageo. You had no problem with that?

Today, the Red Stripe sold in the US is again brewed in Jamaica, because of a coroporate decision by the new majority stockholder, the Dutch company Heineken.

Oh, and complicating things even more - that Latrobe brewery in western PA was for several decades or so (late 1980s-2006) owned by the Canadian brewer, Labatt, which in the 1990s was purchased by a big Belgian brewer called Interbrew (gee, whatever became of them?).

And, a decade earlier than Labatt's purchase of Rolling Rock, that "Jamaican" beer Red Stripe was being brewed on the other side of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia...

 

Hence, the lawsuit trolls who claim they were deceived ('cause they didn't read the label until they decided to sue... ).

Asahi was sued a few years ago because their "Japanese" beer was brewed in Canada (IIRC).

IDK what became of that lawsuit...

 

You mean like Kona brewed at Widmer and Red Hook?
Though I don't know or remember if there was a lawsuit involved in that case.