Should BAs start staying away from Goose Island?

http://beeradvocate.com/respect_beer/

Maybe we can get an admin to make the following change to the above:

Be an advocate of beer. If the beer is good, consumers will want it. If it's really good, lots of consumers will want it. Once it becomes widely available and the brewery is commercially successful, you should hate it and stop drinking their good beer.

 

Curious - how is the logic flawed? We could probably argue about the point being stupid or not, but let's not.

 

While I agree with much of this line of thinking and really dislike the direction huge corporations have gone in this country the argument itself is a giant slippery slope. Sure avoiding a particular brewery is pretty easy given the number of substitute goods available but if you apply this same concept across other mediums you better be willing to give up many of the luxuries that I'm sure you've grown accustomed too without even realizing it (i.e. that paycheck you get every so often which funds your consumption if you happen to be employed by one like I am)

 

So far all that ABI has done with GI is:

1) Take over their easier-to-brew beers, figure out how to make them on a large scale without a loss in quality, and brew them at ABI's larger facilities, leaving GI free to concentrate more on smaller projects than the staples. (The ABI employee who did an AMA on Reddit said that figuring out the dry-hopping on their IPA was extremely challenging, but they did it.)

2) Infuse capital to allow them to build up the capital-intensive parts of the business, including brewing BCBS.

What are the consequences of this? Well, BCBS will be year-round soon. They'll be able to make King Henry 2.0 a large release later this year. They're still operating independently. Is this bad for craft beer? I guess if you think that increased supply and downward pressure on high-end beer prices is a bad thing, but no one here does.

TL;DR: I really don't get why people care about this.

 

See above, the logic is hopelessly flawed unless you are willing to apply the argument across everything in life you do. It is a giant slippery slope.

 

I'm patiently waiting for someone to mount their craft beer high horse.

 

Craft beer companies should remain reasonably small forever. I want these companies to grow and make more beer, but if they cross some arbitrary financial threshold and develop a growth-enhancing financial partnership that doesn't affect the beer quality, I am going to be extremely angry.

 

Yeah - being a conscientious consumer can be very hard. It takes work, and often, research. I'm not going to act like I'm some beacon of sustainability and eco-friendly consumerism and that I never support big corporations. However, I do try to shop at stores where I know my food and produce is grown/raised/made in an environmentally-friendly way, or at least in a way that supports small, local business (farmers' markets and such), and I try to avoid a lot of products that I know to be harmful to either people or the planet (although I'm still a big gasoline user, and I have been known to buy cheaply-produced imported clothing from time to time). Professionally, I've been a teacher and I'm currently a writer. The newspaper I write for has its own issues, but big business isn't one of them - and the magazine I write for, well, I wouldn't call that big business either. Really, it's one of the companies I'm most proud to work for.

But yeah, I get your point. It's hard. Like I said - I'm not advocating a Goose Island boycott. I'm not even advocating an AB-InBev boycott. I'm just saying I dig why some people are.

 

Honestly - I don't see how the fact that someone might be unwilling to take this stance across the whole platform of their lives means that their logic for doing it in one aspect is flawed.

Nobody is going to be a perfect consumer. However, if we each hold our own principals with respect to what we buy, that small impact can make a difference. For example: I could stick to my principals regarding food (one of the few things I'm good at following) and only patronize restaurants that use grass-fed beef and locally sourced produce, etc. You could stick to your guns about avoiding exploitative clothing companies (or whatever your beef of choice is). Others can adhere to their boycott of anything but independently-owned breweries. Together, we make up a community of responsible adults that can eventually make a positive impact in our greater communities.

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

 

Yes, please stay away everyone who hates the bid bad corporations then maybe I will be able to get all the BCBS and its variants that I want down south (insert evil laugh here)! However, while your at it, please take the politicians who impose an alcohol content law on me with u as well.

 

I hear you, and I wish the world was simple enough to not have to deal with the big business issue but unfortunately it is not. Those who can get through life doing so are probably better people than me and I respect that choice.

 

Who cares. all AB has to do with it, is paperwork.... Everything else stayed the same.

 

Yeah. If this is the worst of it (as in, there's nothing bad here), then it's all good. The potential for "scary" things to happen exists out there, but so far it's been gravy. mmmmmm gravy.

 

That's not exactly true. See Stupac2's post above (or where I quoted it below). It's a whole lot more involved than paperwork. And honestly, the "paperwork" (and the lawyers and shareholders that come with it) is the biggest problem, because so far the beer most certainly is not.

 

Shameful.

 

seriously OP ?

uhm, the answer is no.

 

Damn right you'll hand it over how dare you drink beers other than ones that BA approves of.

 

I stay away from 312. Consider that my contribution.

 

I think it's a fair question. The original thread is gone, at least I can't find it, because the forums were redesigned - but there was some real fear and uproar about Goose Island's sale back when it happened. Here's a look at a couple of reactions to that news from another source, as well as reactions to similar news about Goose Island from the BA community. I think we're kind of a nervous/paranoid bunch when it comes to things like this, and I think this question is worth exploring.

http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=6660.0

http://beeradvocate.com/community/t...busch-craft-advisory-board-established.49926/

 

Tough to call it a fair question. If we are really going to debate the merits of spurning big business and what it stands for the "Where should I buy my beer from" question would be number 6,784,625,913 on my list.......way behind items such as a living wage and environmental responsibilities etc.

Choosing to not buy GI beer because they are now related to InBev will have absolutely no impact on the greater good of the world. If we are going to collectively focus our energy on trying to improve this place we call home there are far better ideas such as hunger, poverty, and education; not my beer consumption.