Boycotting 10 Barrel & Elysian

Rather than going back and forth on this, let me ask you a question.

What do you perceive the reason to be for Ab-InBev's involment in IPA wars? Also, just trying to understand here... but do you feel that Ab-InBev is pro-craft, and that the reason they promote events like this, and continue to buy up places like Elysian, 10 Barrel, Goose Island, etc., is that they're just trying to expand their product line (and it's easier to simply buy up craft breweries rather than create their own)?

Historically, it seems pretty clear that Ab has always been anything but craft friendly. From dramatically cutting costs (in a pretty blatant attempt to undercut the competition), threatening distributors, creating stealth breweries (Elk Mountain, Pacific Ridge, Ziegenbock, etc.), and now purchasing craft breweries outright, it always seemed pretty clear to me that Ab was anything but a friend of the craft beer industry. However, I'm more than willing to hear an arguement to the contrary, and would be interested in hearing your perspective on this.

 

I know this thread is pretty long, but quite a number of folks on it have expressed viewpoints similar to your own. There are some folks who feel very strongly about Ab's history of trying to stick it to craft breweries in the past (and so won't buy Ab stuff under any circumstances), but a lot of folks (most?) are happy to boycott 10 Barrel and Elysian, just because it's easy for them to do so. For the most part, there's nothing made by either brewery that I/we can't find an adequate substitute for elsewhere, and so we'd rather give our money to breweries that aren't associated with a company that in the past has gone out of it's way to destroy something we truly love. Besides, we all have to pick and choose what we want to buy in the marketplace anyway, and so why shouldn't 10 Barrel and Elysian's affiliation with AB-InBev play a role in our decision what to buy (or not buy).

My feeling is that the real test of conscious will come when (hopefully never, but my guess is that it will happen someday) AB-Inbev absorbs some place like Barley Brown, Boneyard or Fremont; breweries that make beers I cannot find a ready substitute for elsewhere. Would we still buy pallet jack, hop venom, notorious, B-Bomb and Cowiche Canyon if those beers were made by a brewery now under the Ab-InBev umbrella? Personally, I hope it never comes to that, because I know I very well might.

As for your final comment, I don't think there's any real right or wrong answer. As Terry mentioned, that's a choice you have to make for yourself as an informed and interested consumer. The analogy has been made before, but let's say you found out that the profits from some local company you were fond of were being funnelled directly to ISIS. By all accounts, local employees were completely blameless and uninvolved in the decision to direct profits to ISIS, and were simply doing clerical work for the compay in order to send their kids to school, pay the mortgage, make their car payment, etc. In other words, by your definition, they were good people and this was simply their life's work. It's an extreme example (obviously), but I think you see my point. Would you stop buying products from the company if you knew that decision might contribute to some of these folks (friends and neighbors of yours) losing their jobs?

Not that I see Ab-InBev as similar to ISIS in any way, but I think the analogy is sound otherwise. I agree it's a tough decision to make, especially if you have family, friends and neighbors that work for Ab-InBev (or one of the breweries they now own). Personally, my take is that nature abhors a vacuum, and if for some reason Ab-InBev were to go belly up, there would likely be some other entity to take it's place, and so most of the employees currently employed by Ab-InBev would retain their jobs (in some form or another). Shrug. I don't really see that as a likely outcome (Ab-Inbev going belly up), but maybe if enough folks do boycott places like 10 Barrel and Elysian, Ab-InBev will reconsider their current business model. I think that's all most of us are really hoping for.

 

LOL! Well, for anyone who might think that the folks at the top of Ab-InBev are just a bunch of empty suits, this article probably isn't going to change your mind. What kind of pinhead goes around actually saying something like this:

“In any company, there’s 20 per cent that lead, 70 per cent that follow and 10 per cent that do nothing,” Mr Brito recalls. “So the 10 per cent, of course, you need to get rid of . . . They’re always unhappy anyway and complaining.”

 

Well now Reidrover, let's look at this from their point of view.

Sure, if you're making something comparable to (let's just say) Ayinger's Celebrator Dopplebock, you might be tempted to think you're making something magical and special. However, if you're churning out an ocean of stella, bud lite, or michelob ultra, and masses of consumers are uncritically gulping it down by the case or pitcher... I think that tends to take a lot of the magic out of the "process." Also take into account that the German brewer probably barely makes enough money to keep his family fed, while Ab-InBev is a multi-billion dollar multi-national corporation... and you can see where Mr. Falconi might come to his conclusion.

"magic, smagic... who's raking in the Euros?"


Shrug. IMHO, this is just how Ab-InBev sees the world. Brewing beer is just a means to an end for them. If they could make more money producing petrified moose turds, packaging and marketing them as deep fried, chocolate flavored, foie gras logs, they'd switch over tomorrow. I honestly believe that.