Anheuser-Busch shuts down Platform Brewery

Yeah, I happened to stumble upon the news when it was hot off the presses this afternoon and I can't say I felt too surprised then. Not surprised now, with the benefit of time. Probably no one is surprised...

Seems like there was a lot going against them - any one of which might have sunk them individually, but they had doom written on their foreheads after AB-Inbev stepped in.

1) Getting bought out by the dark lord
2) The owners apparently being scummy even before then
3) Scattershot approach to beer - lotta people claim their stuff was mediocre
4) Expanding to Columbus and Cincy and failing
5) The horrible press resulting from horrible conditions of the above
6) Pandemic
7) Inflation
8) Long-discussed overcrowded scene finally snapping to? With beer sales apparently declining, it couldn't have boded well.
9) Not sure how well their locations facilitated traffic
10) Alleged neglect of their sour beer facility/tasting room

From Scene: "Scene has heard some employees have been locked out of the company's Slack channel and haven't officially heard from anyone while others have signed NDAs as part of their severance package.

The beer giant may continue brewing a few core Platform beers elsewhere, some said, but the entire local operation is done and all employees have been laid off.

*Update: A Platform spokersperson told Scene: "As we navigate through the changing industry and operational challenges, it has become clear that Platform’s production and commercial efforts need to be focused on three beers: Haze Jude IPA, Odd Future Imperial IPA, and our new Canalway IPA. We are grateful to be part of the Ohio beer community and look forward to continuing to provide local beer drinkers with the IPAs they’ve come to love."'

Now Inbev wants to hijack the hides of a couple of IPAs to fly around... yeah, right. It doesn't seem too different from what they have been doing lately - a lot of Haze Jude, but probably too little too late. Doubt anyone's going to go out of their way here, there are enough good IPAs around that will still be brewed locally. I feel for the employees - of course that is the way it goes for them. And the customers, after the brewery was advertising its subscription services not too long ago

Guess I should track down some Martians or something before then.

 

Fitting they are going with the trends of 3 IPAs on the flavor spectrum and one of them is called Odd Future.
Just sad as they had a decent thing going before the sale. Can't speak to the ownership but they had a home brew store across the street and had an internship for home brewers.
Their canning works are in the old Leisy Brewing bottling works building.
Started off strong and well...yeah, 3 more big brewer shelf turds taking up space on the shelves now. Plenty of other options locally and others very nearby that have bested this local comet that crashed.

 

The brewery tap room a few years back was actually a nice spot. Few beers had a glimmer of hope, but there repeat batches never compared to the first.

 

Went to Platform a bit the first year they opened, but it quickly turned for the worse back then. Could not re-brew anything consistently. New beers weekly, most were not good at all.

But yeah, even before Inbev, the quality was horrid. InBev didn't really help much in that regard once they took over.

No real loss here, from me. I did like the Phunkenship, though... They did some really good BA sours.

 

I really enjoyed the Muni tall boys and stil see some left over 4 packs that I will probably grab and they just released the Lawlessness which I liked and will probably grab a six before it's gone. Of their two flagships I preferred the Speed Merchant to the Palester. I thought the taproom was good the half dozen times I was there early on, but the slow service, crowd and the constant rotation kept me to the retail offerings as far as consistency.

 

They did a lot of Berliners too. They exposed that style more than a lot of local breweries. They might not have been great, but created some shelf options to get folks interested in something different.

 

A couple notes to this development:

1. The sale of Platform to AB included their self-distribution network and related warehouse and equipment (not sure if they also distributed other breweries or just their internal brands).
2. These were just one of many broad layoffs across several if not more of AB's "Brewers Collective" 20 craft brands that occurred last week:

• Platform Beer
• Goose Island Chicago
• Karbach Brewing
• Blue Point
• Devils Backbone
• Wicked Weed
• Wynwood Brewing
• Veza Sur
• Possibly others

https://www.brewbound.com/news/brew...e-slimming-down-more-layoffs-could-be-coming/

 

I was at the location once, when in town for a Cinema Wasteland movie exposition. Yeah, the beers did not leave that much of an impression. The New Cleveland Palesner was the 'best' one.
As for why it is being brewed in New Hampshire; it might be that ABiB doesn't have a lot of physical breweries which handle ale yeast, and this is the closest one {But could it have utilized Goose Island in Chicago?}.

 

And perhaps the NH brewery had excess capacity and was better suited here?

You may know the 'answer' to the following: I have read in the past that some of the AB breweries are better suited (a brewery configuration topic?) to produce ales vs. others AB breweries optimized for lager brewing. Specifically I have read that both the Baldwinsville and Merrimack breweries are properly configured to produce ales? Do you have specific information here?

Cheers!

 

I think I might have partially answered my question above. Below is a video shot at the AB Baldwinsville brewery and around the 1:00 mark the AB person states: We are a unique brewery that can make any one of those products, so that’s what makes it so special about the Baldwinsville brewery that we have this capability here. This may not be 100% accurate transcription but pretty close. The host/narrator goes on to state: but probably the most flexible of the 12 Anheuser-Busch US plants.

Cheers!

 

Baldwinsville had trouble hitting the same quality versions of Goose Island beers such as 312, IPA and Honker’s Ale after the sale. That said, the thought process was likely to dumb the beers down (make more bland) and minimize cost as they have done with changes to Michelob and Budweiser over the years.

They finally pulled the plug on Honker’s Ale distribution after declining quality and sales. Thankfully, the Fulton Brewery has resumed brewing Honker’s Ale for both keg draft and also cask service at their Brewpub in Chicago, and limited distribution of kegs in our area. The Beer Temple periodically serves on cask and draft, the only place I’ve seen it outside of GI’s taproom/brewpub.

Green Line has also returned locally, with wider distribution.

 

Interesting article on a brewery that AB bought out and then shuttered.

https://www.clevescene.com/food-dri...ts-way-in-scaling-up-and-selling-out-42163691

Edit: Sorry the title got cut off.