Anheuser-Busch buys Goose Island- My Thoughts

I woke up this morning thinking it would be an average day, get up, get dressed, check my e-mail—find out that Goose Island brewing had been bought out by Anheuser-Busch?!! What the shit?!

I am finally confronted with a question my wonderfully, ever trolling friends ask me: What would you do if Anheuser-Busch made a good beer? Would you say it sucked as much then? I've tossed this idea around in my head and thought of how that would effect me. What would I do if one of my favorite beers like Bourbon County was made by the makers of Budweiser?! Well that simply wouldn't happen!! But it has.
I read an interview on www.timeoutchicago.com and their press release and it's soulless. Now before you jump all over me, especially after my last blog post about business being business with Dogfish Head's decision to tighten distribution, I can see why they did it. With the money that Anheuser-Busch has one would think that the creative capacity is boundless, and it should be. Just talking to Larry Sidor at Deschutes he said if he had more money he'd be able to support more beers like the Organic Ale and The Dissident Brown Sour. I wonder though, at what cost?
I don't question Goose Island's motives. The interview I read with Greg Hall made it seem like the spark was gone, and he did the craft beer thing and is ready to do something else now. Anheuser-Busch had the money and of course seeing the direction that craft beer is going in today, who wouldn't want to get involved. Anheuser-Busch on the other hand has business practices that I simply don't want to endorse. Obviously their attempts at creative “microbrew start-ups” around the country hasn't worked because people have been on the look out for macrobrew owned microbrews, so purchasing an established and respected, award-winning company was a natural next step.
Personally, I have to vote with my dollars. Anheuser-Busch will be riding the coat tails of creativity that the talented brewers of Goose Island have sewn and I can't support that because I believe that as a business Anheuser-Busch his morally bankrupt. Is this a lesson for us? Should we take drinking locally more seriously instead of searching for beers from far and wide? This is America, of course we can't, but I'm starting to worry about our microbreweries. If they don't have the money to expand as quickly as their consumers would like them, is it time to raise the price of beer? I am truly excited but slightly fearful of our future in the microbrew world. It is all our goal to make money, and to please our customers with a wonderful product, but how can we do this without subjugating our morals and the business standards of our drinkers? These aren't just rhetorical questions I want to hear back from you guys about your ideas! Does it even effect you? Perhaps you're disturbed having a foreign company buying out an American small business? I want to hear back about what you think.


//EDIT//:
I would also like to point out that Dogfish Head and Deschutes may be having similar issues regarding producing enough for a high demand, however they are taking the slow and steady approach much like Sam Adams, Sierra Nevada and Stone have. Greg Koch, CEO of Stone Brewing, has made it clear that he will never sell out even though he may have faced similar issues in the past. Organic business growth is essential especially on a product that has almost no marketing and is truly a grass roots creation. Did Goose Island NEED to take this step? This is where the issue really stings, I think, because maybe they needed the money but was the need so great that they would trade the craft beer spirit for their freedom.

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The Dogfish Example or Supply and Demand

A little over a week ago I was surprised to hear through @fledgelingbrewer that Dogfish Head Brewing was going to be pulling distribution to five states. Of course my first thought was “Oh please not California” and thankfully the golden state has been left in the distribution zone, for now. My immediate second thought was of course to question why this was happening. The show Brew Masters has brought the brand to the homes of thousands of people who previously may not have heard of this beer, and being in a retail setting during it's first few weeks I saw first hand the lightening speed at which these beers were flying off the shelves. During the Beer Bloggers Conference I was lucky enough to meet Mariah Calagione and hear about the company first hand, and it truly is a small down to earth family owned business. The mere idea alone of such a small company producing beers for so many states and export is mind blowing even looking at my own local breweries such as North Coast Brewing Co. and The Bruery. In the last year craft beer consumption has increased by 11% challenging these tiny little powerhouses to be pushed to the max to produce a top quality product for a growing demographic.

In a Blogfish post by Sam Calagione himself, Dogfish Head has decided to discontinue export in 2011, distribution to five states and limit some distribution to other states. The demand for their beer has become so huge that there's no way to provide a quality product with the resources they have at the volume that is being demanded of them at the moment. I think that what they did was a fantastic step for craft beer as an industry. I feel that this announcement brought to light the true spirit and soul of craft beer: Quality over Quantity. They want their business to be fun, they want the freedom to experiment, and they want to please their customers before they've been spread too thin to do any of the three!

If you don't already understand the three-tier system of beer sales let me quickly break it down for you:Your local brewery makes the beer and sells it to the distributor. The distributor ships and sell the beer to the retailer who in turn sells the beer to you the consumer. We've all heard the term “shit rolls down hill” and in this case distributors wants to sell the beer that's selling the fastest and are breathing down the backs of microbreweries nation wide. Today, craft beer geeks are fervidly hunting down the next, biggest, baddest beer. This constant search (as we saw with Pliny the Younger) can get blown out of proportion by the consumers causing things like selling beers that are unsuitable for aging over the internet, etc, etc.

My point here is simple: slow and steady wins the race. Beer is a craft, an art where the brewer creates a beautiful beverage out of pure ingredients and unsuspecting yeast-creatures. Beer is not to be rushed but waited patiently for. If you want a certain beer go to the brewery and get it. Visit the town, tour the brewery. Don't get me wrong I understand that a brewery is a business and there are simple and natural responses to this issue including perhaps and perhaps inevitable increase in prices, however I feel that the demand for craft beer is perhaps so inelastic that such a move would truly not make difference. Compared to wine, beer has an enormous amount of headroom in price. The perceived barrier that wine may have had in price and status has been broken and the demand that we are seeing right now proves that. Beer is not the new wine--Beer is a classic beverage that be damned if it's not on the menu with plenty to chose from. I think it's safe to say that craft beer is here to stay, and my trust is with people like the Calagione family who put quality and satisfaction first because they are secure in their market and their product. Brava!

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Live with Beer not in Fear!

After browsing my weekly paper to see what was featured I found an awesome article by Jay Brooks regarding town mayor, John Lewis, of Gilbert, AZ. The article discusses the ridiculousness of neo-prohibitionists such as this mayor, that even being in the vicinity of an area with the potential of having alcohol served will undo years, in Lewis' case according to the age of his children, decades of parenting! Between this article and last night's recording of The Hoparazzi it suddenly hit me how real a problem neo-prohibitionist ideals truly are. There are indeed people out there that still believe alcohol is the devil's drink and the string to unravel the morals of our country (yes here in the US).

I decided to poke around and I went to a couple web pages including www.beersoaksamerica.org and www.jesus-is-savior.com a rather graphic “teach them with terror” site, and what I found was a sad state of what ignorance can truly do to people. We mock these people and laugh at their ignorance but we don't always address the true harmfulness of their message. The message I received was “be afraid america” - be afraid of life, be afraid of death, be afraid of the unknown and here's why you will go to hell if you disobey me! I was reading an article by Amber DeGrace early today regarding Black Friday and how her family was driving home from Thanksgiving dinner and while passing a large store on the road saw people standing in line, some had tents no less! Why? To get to the sale! Why? Because if you don't buy that gift for your family they won't love you! Be afraid America! Spend your money or you will lose it and all you love!

These fear tactic attitudes are the same tactics used all over the world to control large populations. Jim Jones in Jonestown for example, www.jesus-is-savior.com used Hitler (to describe the beer industry actually) but they used the end result of the Holocaust as an example- What about the beginning? Hitler stirred fear in the hearts of thousands, of course “for their own good.” I have friends who don't agree with drinking, most of them either don't like the way they feel when they drink it, or they have seen it's abuse and how it can effect people, but this is a person conscious choice on their part. I applaud anyone who can stand up for their beliefs, but don't try to terrorize me into agreeing with you. In the case of Mayor Lewis, you can't sheild your 20+ year old children, Im sure if he was sheltered beyond repair he would not be involved in politics.

When Adam and Eve were told not to eat the apple of truth that it was taboo, what did they do? Yes, American culture has taboos, as does every population but the way to deal with that is not to be afraid of them or scare people into obeying the law of the land. Moderation in every aspect of life is what is key. What will Lewis do when his doctor tells him to drink a glass of wine for his health, is he going to run away to a closet so his “children” won't be near the abominable truth of what he is doing?

My point is these sites are more damaging than a raging six-foot tall broad wielding a hatchet singing hymns! There is no other purpose to these sites but to scare people and I think that's totally wrong. I agree that lessons should be taught, and taught correctly, by the family in your own home.

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Real Women Drink Good Beer

If you read my previous post on beer as the catalyst for human civilization it's easy to see how impossible it is to imagine a time or place in all of humanity's agricultural history when the art, science, and joy of brewing has not been intimately intertwined in the social roll of women no matter what culture you come from. In this social media, twitter-soaked world we find ourselves in, the societal conversation relating to the intersection of woman's discourse and the boom of the brewing arts is more vibrant, wide-spread, and volatile than ever. Indeed, it can persuasively be argued that a thoughtful examination of the paradigms surrounding woman and craft brewing could even serve as a model for discussing the evolution and positive transformation of woman's roles in western society in general . It is for exactly this reason that this topic deserves thorough consideration and analysis.

To begin with, no serious proponent of feminist (or craft beer for that matter) ideologies will contend that the advertising offered up by the macro breweries is useful in any way. It does not take much to convince anyone that these segments are in fact damaging to all parties. These ads invariably show women with an image that is simply unrealistically attainable for most women, holding a sub-standard beer for the sake of acceptance from a perfectly ordinary looking man of dubiously portrayed intelligence. In these spots the woman are drinking not because they enjoy the beer, (I mean, c'mon, it's Bud), but rather to ensure their acceptance into a lifestyle. This lifestyle advertising, while undeniably effective, is damaging to craft brew culture because it has very little to do with the quality of the beer, and then necessarily doubly damaging to women. The fact that the macro breweries resort to this style of objectification and lifestyle promotion in their advertising speaks volumes about the worthiness of their product and their target consumer. In fact, it is exactly this sort of mentality that brought the US automobile industry, once the manufacturing envy of the world, to its knees (I write more about this in my article on Beer Culture).

However, this post is not intended as another bashing of macro breweries' business practices—that stick house analysis is far to simplistic. I'm pointing it out only because it serves as such a prevalent and obvious example of what simply must be avoided when discussing how craft brewing is to be presented to not just the public, but specifically women. To state the obvious, women should be into beer because they like it. So far, nothing too controversial,right? But the problems arise when the women embedded in this movement, begin to define woman's discourse as it relates to the craft brew movement. Don't get me wrong, a plurality of viewpoints is really an excellent indicator of the health and viability of the topic. What personally concerns me, is ensuring that even amidst the barrage of ideas presented by the hundreds of woman involved in beer blogging, that viewpoints that threaten to reinforce unhelpful aspects of traditional paternalistic values do not go unchecked!

During my recent attendance at BBC10, I listened in while a panel of women discussed ways of attracting more women to craft brew culture—a worthy cause for sure. I do believe this topic is important and honestly, any who think that devising a means of enticing women to become a part of this culture should not be separate from efforts to involve the general public, are ignoring gender relations in our world today. Actually, it is only through acknowledging the difference between men and woman that we can begin to constructively frame the issues at hand. For instance, it was suggested that perhaps including more recipes on craft beer web sights would encourage more woman to explore the wonders of craft beer. My problem with this is not with the recipes, but rather the strong implication that a woman's place is in the kitchen, cooking for her husband. A gain, there is nothing wrong with cooking for anyone, the issue is the absurd notion that THIS is why you are looking at a craft beer web page in the first place. The thrust should be, “here is why you will love the beer,” not “here is how to get your husband to like you again.” During the panel's discussing, this theme was repeated again and again. It was always about making craft beer more compatible with traditional female roles, rather than about bring the bliss of craft brewing to an underrepresented segment of the population for it own sake. If you chose to be involved in an opt-out-feminist-movement, where women embrace traditional paternalistic ideals, do it, but don't make the mistake of thinking that those views will make this non-conforming craft beer culture more appealing to female initiates, nor should you risk misrepresenting an entire community of women involved in the craft beer world. If you want to wear a pink, wear pink! But do it because you like pink, not because you want the boys to like you.

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