Boycotting and supporting

If you are that small your craft beer is certainly more expensive then the larger stores to maintain margins.

You probably have a larger variety and better customer service to attract customers. That is a good business model! True, macro customers are more price sensitive then craft customers, but all customers are price sensitive to a point.

Since I know what the wholesale prices are in my territory, I refuse to buy beer from stores that are marking up their mainstream craft offering more then 20-25%, which is the norm for Macro beers that are not on "special"

Limited edition beers are different and I fully expect to pay a 30%+ markup.

 

Another problem for us is that there really isn't much of a craft beer following on Cape Cod yet (at least not year round). So while it's nice to be sought out by vacationers over the summer, the winter is utter death for us. It's kind of a catch 22 because during the winter we have to cut back on our craft section pretty dramatically to focus on the Bud/Coors demand and when people come in to check out our craft beer at that point it's not overly impressive. Don't get me wrong, for the Cape it's still light years ahead of 95% of the rest (exception of Kappy's and 1 or 2 others) but to someone from off Cape it's really not a big deal.

 

This is the gun I bring to this fight all the time. Taste is what really matters. I bet more than a few people who "won't buy GI after the ABI deal" wouldn't turn down a BCBS or two...

 

I will not buy GI.

 

No doubt. Easy to say it here. When it's on a taplist, you know they're gonna order it!

 

Jim Koch wouldn't have much to say about a SAM buyout. The stock is publicly traded and the Institional Shareholders own at least 96% of the shares.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/mh?s=SAM+Major+Holders

 

Jim would probably disagree, reach into his back pocket and pull out a copy of the 2011 Boston Beer Co. Annual Report which reads in part:

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"The Class A Common Stock has no voting rights..."​

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"The Class B Common Stock has full voting rights, including the right to (1) elect a majority of the members of the Company’s Board of Directors and (2) approve all (a) amendments to the Company’s Articles of Organization, (b) mergers or consolidations with, or acquisitions of, other entities, (c) sales or dispositions of any significant portion of the Company’s assets and (d) equity-based and other executive compensation and other significant corporate matters..."​

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"As of February 17, 2012, C. James Koch (aka "Jim Koch") was the sole holder of record of all the Company’s issued and outstanding Class B Common Stock."​

 

I have a much simpler philosophy:

Good beer = buy.

 

Jim Koch, with his 30-35% overall ownership (Class A and B stock ownership) can certainly run the company for as long as he wants. His job and control of the company are not in jeopardy.

The Class A shares could certainly be picked up by a larger conglomerate.

 

I did enough hating on sellout bands, filmmakers, artists, and writers when I was a kid. People should just grow up and relinquish all their dogmatic ideologies. It seems nowadays beer geeks and foodies are the worst of these offenders. There's nothing wrong with being successful and profitable, so if it tastes good, knock 'em back!

 

there's no ideological neutrality on offer. the view you're professing is itself indicative of an ideology, and--even more importantly--you are likely ideologically motivated to state it.

 

This statement has the makings of an article that you see in The Onion:

"Guy that sold out encourages others to sell out too"

 

Good tasting is a necessary condition.

Actually... if anything I'm more inclined to cut back on purchasing if they don't make decisions that are more profit & growth oriented. I resent a lot of their idealism that results in significant shortages and related market inefficiencies that are a royal PITA to the consumer.

 

There's a difference between "this band/brand sold out" and "the current owner of this brand/band does evil". It's no loss to me either way as far as GI is concerned - I've never tasted any of their beers anyway, and there's always a dozen or more other choices in whichever style they brew to choose from, and I'm allowed to make the choice to try all of the others (which I haven't) first. If that affects the regular guys on the production line working for them (which I doubt it will, because their products are popular) it just sucks to be them, I guess. I haven't bought pizzas from one popular delivery chain in over 20 years, because the owners of that chain funnel vast amounts of money into causes I disagree with. They're within their rights to do so and they're apparently doing fine without me, but they can't have my money to help. I get great pizza whenever I want it anyway.

 

I live in San Diego County, so it's easy to support local beer, because it's f'ing great! However, supporting a brand for purely philosophical reasons seems dubious to me. Do you love the beer, or the mentality?

 

Same here. Quality goes into my calculations too.

 

I buy beer I like and am passionate about, regardless of the brewery. If BMC brewed a IPA eaqually as good as...say Sculpin, PtE or Citra I wouldn't have a problem buying it.

 

Two thoughts on the subject:
1. If you make your own informed decisions and vote with your wallet based on your beliefs, you're doing it right.
2. When you tell others that they need to do the same thing you're doing, you're being a douche.
It's just like with vegans. I'll support anyone's dietary choices (unless they want to go cannibal), but I don't want to hear about how I should do the same.

 

To those saying, "if the beer tastes good who the hell cares?" or something along those line:

Are their any lines companies could cross that would result in you turning your back on them? If they were owned by the Taliban, if they funneled money to the KKK, if they polluted the environment so badly that it gave you lung cancer, etc., would you still buy from them? What if they did all those things and made the most amazing bourban barrel aged stout/DIPA/sour in the world? Would you still buy from them?

I am certainly not saying that AB-Inbev is the same as terrorists, environment killers, nut-job racists; instead I am just trying to point out that the taste of the beer ISN'T always the bottom line. Everyone has their limits of what they are willing to tolerate, as such, I think the argument of "if it tastes good, then who cares?" is one nobody really subscribes to.