Forget Craft. Let's Try Transparency

You have 20 feet of GI junk because your distributor wants more
Bourbon County and variants. Founders is bad here for that crap if you want Kbs they make the retailers sell the other stuff.

 

Would you consider that a bad or predatory business practice?

 

YES!!! That's absolutely true. And then they sold it for $5 more than any other place was charging! ... ... still have all that Goose Island though, and now there's 10 Barrel next to that as well. I won't complain if Wicked Weed shows up though.

 

Just as a consumer of beer who frequents places of beer sales I object. I can't fully support big beer practices because in the long run they will affect my choices as a consumer. There is already some rather large Devils Backbone displays popping up all over and they only brew one beer I would consider drinking, the lager. Same with Goose they put out huge displays even though nobody buys it even though they are selling the 16oz 4x packs of Goose IPA for like $5. Like others said next week it will be Wicked Weed and then someone else and I don't have the effort to keep scrolling past this weak shit in my beer shopping.

 

You may see the Wicked Weed before much longer. I've now seen single bottles of a few different beers in a couple of bottle shops.

BTW, with that distributor, lets not leave customers out of the equation. If they weren't buying those beers it won't do any distributor any good when it comes to getting BCBS.

 

Will it? How do you know this?

Come on, man. Like you've never walked past beers before to get to the beer(s) that you wanted. Give me a break.

If breweries that are in direct competition with The High End weren't telling people that ABI ownership was bad, nobody would bat an eyelash. Propaganda is making people dislike ABI. Nothing else.

 

I see ABI limiting choices. I'm part of a bowling league and the bar has 10 taps. They used to have 5 or 6 AAL beers and then 4 or 5 local craft beers, now they have 5 or 6 AAL beers and 3-4 "High End" ABI craft beers. That's limiting choices and that's what I see this whole battle is about. Wont be long before it ends up the same in grocery stores and liquor stores. There's only so much space for beer and ABI typically finds away to take it over.

 

Not doubting this at all. Were the High End beers worse than the Locals?

My issue with this is that "local" doesn't always mean "great". Now if you told me that the styles of beer and the quality of those beers were worse, I could do nothing but sympathize with your situation. However, if everything remained the same, save who was selling the beers, then I don't think that you have a leg to stand on.

 

Absolutely! I recently went to a local Shakespeare in the park and almost every beer I saw was Goose Island, 98% or so. Their display is 4 feet tall, three cases deep, and 21 or so feet long - so they're definitely moving some serious volume on Goose Island!

EvenMoreJesus also makes a good point referring to tap take over - "Were the High End beers worse than the Locals?" - they're usually not. And I can back him up on that regarding my distributor experience as well... prior to the Goose Island display that area would have been Bud/Bud Light or Natural/Natural Light, so what's worse?

 

To non-beer-nerd craft beer drinkers, having a new brand like Goose Island available to them is like having Corona in cans.

 

Because that is how ABI competes in the market, it has been documented for decades. Like you mentioned now they are a player in the niche segment and I don't see them out brewing others for that shelf space.

The propaganda can be seen on TV in the ABI commercials.

 

Some better some worse. It was just my example. I should have said just independent craft because, I'm not a buy local, too hell if its not better than other beer. Very easy to find independent craft beer better than High End beers. I'm far more into the idea of choice than ABI's idea of choice, spread the wealth, dont put it one person's pocket.

 

According to whom?

ABI has been in the craft beer business for around 10 years, but really has only been successful in it over the past couple years. Why? Because they are making beers that more people like, thereby giving them more choices.

ABI will never "convert" high level beer nerds to liking all the products that they put out, but that's not what they've set out to do. They've set out to capture a larger part of the craft beer market by making and selling beer that appeals to the most craft beer drinkers.

 

Yes, it can be seen, but you assume it has an effect on folks. The only thing it accomplishes is to crate awarness of options. It doesn't make anyone do anything.

 

I agree with this, to some extent, but I really don't care whose pockets my money is going into. I care that I can find and drink great beer. When I stop being able to do that, I'll take exception. Until then, I'm going to drink the best beer that's on tap. That's seldom an ABI product, but I'm not averse to drinking them. The day that I stop being able to find quality beer at the distributor/packy, I'll have even more of an issue, but, then again, I don't see that changing for the worse. Actually, because I live in Pennsylvania, beer buying has changed for the better over the past couple years, so maybe I just don't notice it as much.

 

If we didn't have ABI to kick around who would we kick. It's a big target and easy to hit.

 

If WW doesn't show BM me.

 

The retailers hate it. Another example, Hop Drop and Roll was hot a few year ago after Gold at GABF. To have the privilege of buying said beer you also had to but X of Coco Loco and Jam Session. Nobody wants those beers. So yes I consider it predatory.

 

I must say, EvenMoreJesus, you had me a bit confused at first. You've repeatedly argued against small business - possibly the only thing that both Republicans and Democrats agree on supporting!

You have also argued that people 'shouldn't' care about the business practices of the companies they buy from. Now, it's one thing to say you, personally, don't care - that's your prerogative, of course. But instead of that, you have been on here stridently, persistently telling others that they should not care. For some reason, it seems very important to you that other people should ignore where their money goes.

Why, I wondered? Who would be so insistent that consumers do not become educated and informed? So I took a look at your profile. I noticed that you only joined BA last month, and in that time you've made over 700 posts (but not rated any beers). Your profile itself states that you're here to 'save craft beer from itself.' So, perhaps my curiosity about what sort of person would espouse such views has been answered: is it possible you...work for ABI?

 

I really do not know the answer here so we will have to wait what to see what Jesus has to say but...

The aspect of “I'm here to save craft beer from itself” may in itself tell you all that you need to know about him?

For example, do you need to be "saved"!?!

Cheers!