Forget Craft. Let's Try Transparency

There are always strings in any relationship whether with a bank, hedge fund, other investors or. brewery partner. I can say we went for less money, more control and. lot less strings so we can do what we wanted. I believe this will be evident soon.

 

After the purchase of one of my local favorite breweries, I ceased to purchase anything from them. I dont care if they had good beers before the buyout. What matters to me is the little guys fighting to bring us QUALITY beer brewed QUALITY ingredients. Jester King put out a great statement concerning Wicked Weed that really resonated with me.

I work for my money and I will choose what is worthy of my money. I will not purchase any beer that is affiliated with those big companies. When I go somewhere and the only options for beer are Budlight, Coors, etc. I just choose not to drink beer at all. Why waste my money on a product that has no passion or love put into it?

 

I certainly hope so. Getting more solidly made, creative beer out to more people is never a bad thing.

 

I'm a little late commenting on this article and tell me to shut up if this was mentioned earlier in the thread, but it strikes me that the brewery/beer pages on BA don't have a dedicated [required] "parent company" field.

In some cases, people will enter the parent company in the notes field (e.g. Goose Island), but this is not a universal practice (e.g. Boulevard is owned by Duvel but there is no note of this).

I know nothing about web dev, so I have no clue what sort of effort adding such a field would involve, but with an ever-consolidating craft beer market I think this would be a fantastic site feature. Members would do a lot of the heavy lifting by identifying and reporting the parent companies through the existing report link. Independently owned breweries could maybe get a cute little gold star (just an idea, heh).

Anybody have any thoughts on this?

 

My comment is that you should direct your specific message to the BA moderators. Maybe they will agree with you that this would be useful information and make changes accordingly.

Cheers!

 

I'm not exactly sure if I know what you mean here. However, if you mean when a BA enters in a new brewery that you might be suggesting that an optional field could be "parent company" and then the parent company could be posted on the brewery's BA page, something like this:

"Parent Company" : (fill in the blank here)

Is that what you mean?

I would say that since BA relies on its users to faithfully send in correction reports in the drop down menu that says "notes" that is what currently works in being able to keep BA users informed of who owns who.

However, perhaps highlighting this, maybe bolder on the brewery's page itself for BA users to see could be a pretty good idea.

Also, keep in mind, most breweries don't start off in the industry as having a parent company so when they first get entered in on BA, most BA's are going to have to put "NA" in that field.

I have to admit, I do like that "gold star" for independently owned breweries.

If I were you, you could suggest this in the "support & suggestions" forum.

 

Why just a "parent company" field? Why not an "ownership" field?

That way, you can see who, exactly, has invested in the company and who has control over their decision making.

 

As a natural contrarian, I respectfully disagree with every salient point raised in this article. Those who support multinational corporations either don't understand the extreme damage these business entities do to global and local commerce or they do and support it.

 

Please explain why they are bad for other businesses. Then explain why they are bad for the consumer.

 

I personally put a lot more weight on ownership than flavor. If your owner and/or bartender is a terrible human being and you make amazing beer then I will move on to the amazing staff of a decent brewery. I have had the opportunity to travel and enjoy seeing different places. I have come across a large amount of mediocre beer but I enjoy the camaraderie and community more than the liquid. I do not care what others drink and do not think that I am better than anyone else because of what I drink or what they drink...Let's all just drink what we like and accept that there will be differences of opinions.

 

Well said, kind sir!

 

Thank you kind sir. In the end...IT'S JUST BEER!

 

Amen. When I was 20 in 1971 my best friend and I went to Europe for the Summer, hitch-hiking and with a Eurail pass as a back up. In England we were treated beyond what we could have ever expected. In London we met two fellows, one from Yorkshire, the other from Wales. We got to drinking and they were on Summer break from college like we were, so they invited us to join them on a tour to York, Scotland, The Lake Country, Cardiff, Cornwall and back to London. We were in York for its 1000th anniversary, climbed Ben Nevis, swam in Loch Ness, drank Brains in Cardiff and we were taken into people's homes, fed and treated just like we were their kids. I'll never forget it for as long as I live. Thing is, the beer was always quite good, but the companionship and education was superb. I have always wished that America was more like this.