Top 250 Beer Notification

It's only relevant if the larger corporation starts deciding what recipes/ingredients are used in order to cut costs and increase profits. Mass production is the bane of the beer industry. As long as the independent brewers are allowed the freedom to apply their craft, the corporate ownership should not matter.

 

I sorta get the desire for efficiency, but many (I'd likely say most) of the ideas presented in this forum reek of people who don't feel like putting in any effort to find any information, regardless of the usually-minimal investment of time (and any other resources). In this case, if you need to click to a second (or, gasp, third) screen just to find out if a certain beer is on some list of rankings, so be it; it doesn't sound like all that much of a hassle to me.

 

Sorry. You're right, no need to be over the top. So let me a clearer point.

Unfortunately, the "whine" I referred to was not yours, so the choice of words could have been better. There's an underlying current of anti-establishmentarianism that people project on everything. If a brewery gets beyond a certain size, they've "sold out" and are no longer a part of the "movement" -- for some reason, Boston Beer Co (Sam Adams) gets that treatment, but Sierra Nevada does not. Venture capital money is OK, but taking money from BMC -- even on the condition of non-interference with the creative process, as was the case with Goose Island -- is not. And, for some reason, Leffe/Hoegaarden are evil, but Newcastle (Heineken) and Ommegang (Duvel) are not. Even Magic Hat gets the rough treatment sometimes over their ownership -- the animosity from some circles over a perfectly legitimate trademark kerfuffle was incredible.

I sympathize with anti-establishmentarinism but exercise it with caution. As an absolute dogma it is as dangerous as any textual literalism or zero-tolerance policy. One not only should think before subscribing to it, but should also think every time before applying it.

 

See I know what you're saying, but that's not really what "anti-establishmentarianism" means...

 

I know, but it's more fun saying it...

And it's not that far off if we treat the closed space of beer makers and drinkers as a single "society"

 

I think that this is a fantastic idea!