U.S. Challenges AB-InBev's Purchase of Grupo Modelo

High End Segment Advocate.

 

Can we get shirts with this printed on it?

 

Haha, as if there is a for profit industry that doesn't hope its competitors do poorly. This is news?

It would be news if an internal memo said, "We really hope our competitors succeed, and we hope they are successful in causing our profits to go down drastically." That would be news. Some folks need to get a grip on what being in business actually means.

 

They're a business trying to maximize their profit, what else are they gonna do?

That being said, this is basically the reason I refuse to drink BMC products. People always say you should give beer a shot regardless of the brewer, but I call that bullshit on that. I refuse to drink their beer due to their business practice of actively trying to squash ALL competition, not to mention trick people into buying mediocre "craft" beer released under bogus names that hide the fact their brewed by them.

But yeah... not really news.

 

I am with you, sort of. You lost me after the first sentence.

ABI's flagship beers suck, so I son't drink them. I love BCBS and BCBCS and I can get them more easily now. If that is because of folks like you who understand that business is business, and still don't buy from companies like ABInBev, well, all I can say is thank you.

 

Was this an old email or something? Because it would seem to me that the purchase and inflow of cash into Goose Island over the past 2 years has only furthered their nightmare of "not let[ting] the industry transform."

It sounds like they changed their tune (around late 2010/early 2011), agreed that change was happening, and rolled with it by entering the "High End Segment" with stuff like the Goose Island purchase and "premium" (I use big quotes there) offshoots of their main brands like Budweiser Black Crown, Bud Light Platinum, and Beck's Sapphire.

 

Buy more craft, not like I needed to say really say that.

 

What exactly do you do, anyway? I feel like if ever there was a job title of beer ninja, you might be it.

 

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt."

 

In other news Microsoft wants to find a way to stop people from buying Apple products.

 

Normally I'd just hit the "like" button and move on, but we're not necessarily talking about competing products like laptops or operating systems. Craft brewers have realized there's room to commingle as each respective brewery offers a desired product in its own right in the mind of their consumers. AB sees it as a winner take all competition, that it's their beer or no beer, which is horrible for the end consumer, us, who wants variety and quality. In the end it's still business and everyone's trying to make a buck, but MS vs. APPL is company vs. company and that's healthy competition that breeds quality. AB vs. craft beer is company vs. industry and that doesn't breed a better product, it stifles growth and oppresses the evolution of the industry.

Sorry, didn't mean to get so serious, I think I need a beer. What time is it?

 

I agree with what you are saying, I was just pointing out that as a big business, of course AB wants to knock out their competiton, we don't need an article to know that.

 

Well fellow David Advocates get out your slings. Let's help increase market share.

 

Corporate beer still sucks.

 

I think it is important, sure the assumption was BMC was trying to keep craft down and they'd do sneaky things to do it ("pay for play", fake craft brands etc..) but to go and write it down to me means they're not thinking "we need to do this" they're thinking "we have the right to do this"

 

I wish, but god knows the entire BMC crowd is constantly having favors done for it compliments of government regulation. The evil empire strikes again.

 

I'd say that's a fairly obvious statement coming from A-B. Of course they want as many people used to buying their beer as possible. And for the better part of the century, Ameridan adjunct lagers were pretty much the only option of beer. If your product is sold to the vast majorty of beer drinkers, nearly the total population of beer drinkers, really...for a century...then ANY change in the market would be disconcerting. The craft beer world boomed pretty quickly. It was a niche that was easy to ignore for a few decades and then within the last decade or so, it got huge. So of course the BMC companies don't want it to keep progressing. I don't think we need "inside info" to assume that; it's obvious economics.

I do find it interesting that they specifically say they cannot let the industry transform, but the BMC companies themselves are transforming. THEY are the ones changing their products/advertising a little bit and trying to ride the craft beer wave.

 

Legality comes down to the details.

 

Big business is favored by govt.? Wow, that is almost as big news as OP.