Now, don't worry, this won't be some hand wringing diatribe on a brewery selling out to the evil corporations. Neither yet is it a lament about another well respected, award winning, brewery going from craft to crafty in the ledgers of the Brewers Association. You see, it really isn't all that important, unless of course you buy into the faux-revolutionary bollocks which is much of craft beer marketing. What we have here is a very successful business buying another successful business because they think it will benefit their business.
Thus has it ever been, and thus will it ever be.
A couple of things though that stood out to me in the press release included the following statement from the CEO, Craft, at Anheuser-Busch, who said:
"10 Barrel, its brewers, and their high-quality beers are an exciting addition to our high-end portfolio"In that one sentence you have the perception of much of the 'craft beer world', upmarket, high-end, aspirational.
The other was 10 Barrel being excited to benefit from the 'operational and distribution expertise of Anheuser-Busch'. Essentially saying that they are looking forward benefitting from AB's expertise in quality control processes and getting consistently quality beer into the hands of drinkers, which can only be good for drinkers in the long run.
I don't think Goose Island suffered from being taken over by AB so I imagine it will all work out fine for 10 Barrel. As long as the beer doesn't suffer, then it's fine.
ReplyDeleteI do buy in to the whole independent thing though and it's always sad when an independent company of any kind is taken over by a multinational.