Boycotting and supporting

I will never understand why people get pissed at folks who refuse to buy beer that AB/Inbev owns. People go totally ape shit over it. "Stop being so high and mighty!" "Get off your high horse!" "Only the beer in the bottle matters!" "If you're going to boycott every company that does unethical stuff then you better be a hermit that lives totally off the grid!" etc, etc. It's like ab/inbev supporters think non ab/inbev supporters are passing judgement against them, or think less of them. Let it go. Stop projecting your insecurities.

Some people don't want to support AB/Inbev. I am one of those people. I am not hating on you if you do support them. I won't try to dissuade you from buying them. I don't look down my noes at you for buying them. Buy what you want, the way you see fit, but please afford me the same courtesy and stop trying to convince me that it's ok to buy from AB/Inbev. I am not trying to convince you that you shouldn't.

Everyone has their limits on what they will accept from a company. If a brewery made the best beer in the world, but in doing so their facility polluted the water supply where your grandmother lives, thus giving her cancer, you'd probably hesitate to buy their beer. That is an extreme example, I know, and I am not saying AB/inbev is killing people with cancer. However, I am saying that everyone has their limits of what they will tolerate from a company. For me, and others on BA, their limit of what they will tolerate is crossed when they learn of and know of incidences of AB/Inbev holding down the smaller craft breweries from succeeding. We all of our limits, some limits are different than yours.

 

What if a brewery opposes gay marriage? Setup makeout sessions at the local pub? Who's in?!?

 

If a brewer came out and specifically said they are against gay marriage I would totally help to organize a make out session at their brewery.

 

If their beer is good and stays good after the buyout, who the hell cares.

 

I'll buy you a 12 pack and you'll be drunk or at least have a solid buzz man!

 

Lets double the ABV of CL to 8.4%, and divide the 12er to a 6er. You'd require a 6 pack of 8.4% beer to catch a buzz ? Damn.

 

I do. Some things are more important than beer (blasphemy, I know).

 

i think the anger that I havent had BCBS yet showed through a bit.

 

Spelling has never been my strong suit. Nevertheless:

It is stlil esay to undrestadn waht poeple are triyng to say evne whne they splle things wrogn.

 

Ha ha. Understandable.

 

its me white whale. argh.

 

"bad beer, good business practices = no buy
bad beer, bad business practices = no buy
good beer, bad business practices = no buy
good beer, good business practices = buy"

This.

Why is it my responsibility to support a bad product?

 

Trying to come up with examples where a craft brewer turned down a buyout approach from an international conglomerate and announced that fact to the world, making the scenario of this thread possible. Coming up blank.

I carry grudges going back to the second grade, myself, and don't care whether or not they are rational or consistent or even sensible. My grudges my own, they belong to me.

 

Seems to me that both Jim Koch and Sam Caligione (among others) have been quoted as saying something to the effect that they get buy-out offers all the time, as has the non-craft brewer Dick Yuengling, Jr. Certainly the implication being those offers, however vague, are from AB or M-C. In the case of both BBC and Yuengling the rumors of a buyout have been so strong that they've showed up in industry publications/websites.

The fact does remain that, given the 30+ history of "craft brewing" in the US, actual "total buy-outs" have been pretty rare- despite the current beer geek fascination with the topic.

Goose Island-A-B and Miller's purchase of Celis in the '90's the two most notable. A-B has bought into CBA, Coastal (Fordham/Old Dominion brands) in Delaware and the small VA brewery Starr Hill. MillerCoor's Tenth and Blake likewise owns a small [under 35% - to stay within Brewers Association definition of a "craft brewer"] portion of Terrapin - but those are all minority investment deals.

And Miller bought Leinenkugel in the '80's, before the brewery started concentrating on "craft" sorts of styles.

The Big Two's "faux" craft brands, Blue Moon, Leinenkugel and ShockTop are probably all doing better than their acquisitions as far as total sales goes.

 

My answer would have been very different if AB-Inbev didn't make BCBS

 

Have not bought James Squire in two years and now that the last batch of Little Creatures Single Batch has been released I will no longer buy them any more. Lion and CUB own appx 85% of the Australian beer market (lion owns Squire and soon to be owning LC) and then Coopers pretty much makes up the next 10% of the the market here.
I can keep buying Sierra Nevada, Green Flash, Brooklyn, Murray's and Mountain Goat and be quite happy

 

What small beer store owners are you talking to?

I help run a store that does on average about $35,000 a week. Now I don't know if you are talking smaller that that or exactly how small you are talking about.

Limited edition craft beer certainly generates very good margins but I can tell you this much, I get a better margin on Genny Cream 30 packs then Sam Adams.

See, the larger stores, at least the good one, carry craft. And the big distributors have bulk discounts on craft just like they do on macro beer.

So, the larger store will always have cheaper craft then the smaller store, and will be more likely to get allocation of limited supplies of beer, like how Total Wine always gets the most 120 Minute and I can only get 2 cases.

 

Ah, someday my store will average $35,000/week. Hell, it'd be nice to average $25,000/week.

 

and most likely very hungry.....