Do you drink beer from macro-owned craft breweries?

Ownership is irrelevant. Resistance to great beer is futile.

 

I have so many good local options, I don't have to worry about it-so now, I just don't have to. I wouldn't be surprised if one of them got snapped up by "big beer" in the future, and yes, I would still drink them if the product stayed true.

 

Sure. If it is something I enjoy.

It seems to me the only reasons to avoid a macro beer would be personal taste, or personal opinion of their business practice. (Yes, I have no doubt there are other reasons too). The macros appear to be ethical, aside from some sophomoric/boorish and IMO misogynistic marketing. They also are the reason we all can aford the non-macro beers.

 

Marco rocks! (Ha, the spelling police never sleep.) I agree though, good beer at a reasonable price, for me that's fine. Goose is a fine choice in many Irish bars I visit in the Boston area, and I happily imbibe. A positive is that some of these iconic breweries get to be experienced beyond their region.

But I think it might be a good thing that many folks here boycott the "sellouts". In New England great small breweries are popping up everywhere. Most (I think!) don't want to take over the world. Most of the beer I buy now comes in growlers fresh from local breweries. And the quality is very high. Trillium is a weekly stop. I believe this movement is happening all over the country, so I'd say search out your local treasures.

 

Haven't tried it before. I've tried a number of their beers as I've been to the brewery and did a sampling there. I usually don't buy their beer as it's a bit pricey, but once in awhile.

 

This question is of no concern to me. One needs to try and be familiar with as many products as possible. This is the best way to assess quality and to be assured of the continuity of quality. Provenance shouldn't matter if quality and value is consistent.

 

I do not actively boycott breweries based on corporate status. I buy based on taste. If a macro brewery can make great beer, more power to it. Now as it turns out, I rarely buy macro brew beer...

 

When it hits 90 degrees and the humidity is intolerable here in Michigan, a Leinenkugel Summer Shandy hits the spot....I don't care if Miller/Coors gets a piece of the action. The action is real nice on my end.

 

@Chaz I don't think you're in the minority with switch hitting these days. I'd say it's the norm for those who buy craft beer. It might be the majority on BA too.

Maybe our experiences are different, but in mine the Gen-X'ers and older do not see craft beer as new. We cringe, roll our eyes, or just laugh it off when a 21yr old Millennial waiter asks us if we've ever tried Fat Tire and refrain from telling them we tried it for the first time about 20 years ago. If anything, in my case and among those I know that are older we find it amusing that so many people think the craft beer "movement" is new or young. That is the more commonly held view among Millennials or whatever the generation after the Millennials is called. This alone is astonishing to me, not that young folks are ignorant, but that something along these lines is so commonly thought to be new when it really isn't. And, I'm not clinging to some proud sense of being in it at the beginning, or being first, or whatever... I just wish it had remained more of a niche interest and not have gone so mainstream as it has. Most but not all of the changes due to it going more mainstream were not aligned with my interests and preferences. Oh well.

 

That's more than likely, especially in the sense that this former niche has grown to become so large.

I would imagine, however, that my own percentage (25% Macro Swill) would be on the high side for the youngsters.

There are kids today discovering the Clash and The Sex Pistols for the first time, likewise Star Wars, Disco, Science Fiction conventions, skateboarding (has 'throwback' BMX racing happened yet?) . . . and to these younger folks it is very much as if *NOBODY* ever knew about all of these cool and awesome hobbies!

I reckon it's at least a bit similar in the case of Craft Beer and 'Better Beer' (Pub Culture, Belgian ales, etc), also. When I was young I'd roll my eyes a little, too. But I took a different tack when I figured out where I was when I was their age -- especially after meeting serious lifelong hobbyists (NERAX volunteers, GABF and BCCA folks) in my mid-Twenties.

I understand where you're coming from, and from a 'industry' standpoint I always wonder when it will lose the head of steam which it now has (or at least I wondered ca. 2006 to 2010 -- now, all bets are off the table).

I've had friends who also wish it had remained more of a niche, and who dropped-out altogether. Just got tired of all the "kids" and hipsters and hangers-on (in the music scene that last category was always called scene scuckers", which I also found elitist and counterproductive). But, yeah, what can you do? Scenes grow and change.

I still think it will evolve, further, and regain some sense of the "niche" appeal it had twenty or so years ago. It's not as if I have solid proof or peer-reviewed data to back that up (not quite!), but there are undercurrents passing below the trend (local) of a new standalone brewery/Taproom opening every six weeks, so I am somewhat optimistic.

 

No, because I have hundreds of choices at my usual beer store that aren't macro owned and I'd rather support them. But some stuff has slipped through the cracks...

 

I consider myself a conscious informed consumer. I like to know who's getting my money for the most part. I used to buy a lot of GF Sculpin. That deal kind of soured my mood with BP (especially with their SEC fiilling and the prospect of owning their stock.) A 50% deal with Lagunitas hasn't really stopped me. I still buy FW (when I can). Their deal hasn't soured me. Founders' and their deal, I'm okay with. I still buy Oskar Blues as if nothing happened with them.

Where I have gotten a touch more strict, is with the likes of the smaller guys. I don't want sorta average Four Peaks to enter and try to dominate my area. I don't need Breckenridge to come and try to and steal taps.. It's true that consumers have some say in what places tap and sell.I don't want Golden Road, or any other place selling just slightly above par core offerings to try and complicate matters with my cities bars and stores.. It would be fine if tap space increased, and shelf space got bigger. But that big beer bullying and bundling is a real realty.

As far as GI, when there's a crappy local option on tap as craft and then GI IPA as your other craft option next to the macros of the world, I would not say no to GI, nor do I come BCBS time.

There is definitely some blurred lines that the big wigs at the mega corps want. Consumer confusion is good for them.

I guess I'm mostly okay with some of my money going to big PE firms and some to the breweries, not not a total amount going straight to Big Beer.

 

St. Archer Mosaic IPA is a top ten beer for me. I will continue to drink it until that changes. If, indeed, it does.

 

Yes.

I even drink beer from macro owned macro breweries.

 

Shock Top and Blue Moon have dreadful BA ratings. If macro ownership causes Goose Island or Ballast Point to taste like Shock Top or Blue Moon, then stop drinking them. If the taste is unchanged, why stop drinking them?

 

I want pass a good Fullers if i have the chance

 

Small is relative. The Lilliputians didn't find themselves to be small until Gulliver showed up.

 

It's not unlike what happens when each new generation discoveres sex for the first time.

As for switching off between more flavorful beers and macro brewed beers, you're spot on that that is the most common pattern. We had a thread on here a few years back in which it became plain that a marketing research firm employed by Boston Brewing had run the demographics on this and found that the most frequent purchaser of "craft" beer is someone who mostly drinks AALs.

 

I buy good beer, period.

 

Not often. I find myself drinking more of the macro-macro beers, than the craft-owned-by-macro selections, though again, not very often.

With the exception of a few individual beers, I find it easy to find comparable or better beers from Michigan than the shelf-sitters I can buy from GI, Lagunitas, etc. that are available where I'm at.