Your Beer Are Belong to Us !!!!

[marmar]

Giant Corporations Want to Control All of Your Beer

Monday, 22 September 2014 11:04
By Benjamin Dangl, Toward Freedom | Report


The variety of the craft-brewing wave sweeping the US makes drinking beer more fun than ever. Maine’s Flying Dog Brewery brews a beer from local oysters, and the Delaware-based Dogfish Head uses an ancient beer recipe they dug up from 2,700-year-old drinking vessels in the tomb of King Midas.

But as this trend spreads, there’s another revolution going on that’s concentrating most of the world’s beer into the hands of just a few mega-corporations. These kings of beer are riding the wave of craft brewing enthusiasm, buying up smaller breweries, and duping customers along the way.

“If you want to listen to Milli Vanilli, I suppose that’s a choice you get to make. Just know that you’re making that choice,” is how Greg Koch of Stone Brewing Company put it.

Take Blue Point, Long Island’s first microbrewery. A couple of home brewers started the company ten years ago, but this year, Anheuser-Busch InBev bought Blue Point for $24 million. John Hall, the founder of Chicago’s Goose Island beer, told a reporter in 2013, “Goose Island is a craft beer, period.” Yet it too was sold to AB InBev in 2011. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/26351-giant-corporations-want-to-control-all-of-your-beer

[woo me with science]

1. More and more,

everything are belong to them.

[brewens]

2. It started a long time ago. It must have been about 1992 that AB bought Red Hook Brewery.

I think that was there first micro-brew takover.

[a kennedy]

3. Guess we'll just have to stay one brewery ahead of the buyers......look at this list of micro

breweries that will be attending our "Craft Beer Night" at our local Oktoberfest celebration...... it's huge and awesome!!

http://oktoberfestusa.com/activities/craft-beer-night/breweries-and-products/

[Trillo]

4. So, if you're a microbrewer, you should ignore that $24M offer? NT

[dilby]

5. I don't see the problem.

People moved to Microbrews not because they hated the big brewers but because it was a better product. If big breweries buy up the microbrews and still produce the quality product that the microbrews produced then people will keep drinking them. If they put out garbage products then people will just keep drinking the other new microbrews that startup.

[starroute]

11. it's not that simple

The biggies use all sorts of tactics to drive out the little guys. One is to get a toe in the door, cut your prices to the point where no one else can compete, then once you've driven them out of business you either raise your own prices or cut the quality or both.

Another is simple extortion. "If you want to buy from us, you have to stop buying from them."

There are also ways of getting an in with government -- which is why there are no locally owned pharmacies any more -- though that may not apply as much to beer.

But the point is that we don't live in an ideal free market. And there really is a problem.

[dilby]

12. I live in Portland and Microbrews here are super expensive.

But people still pay the price because it's a better product, people will pay for quality over swill any day. One of my favorite restaurants sells their Microbrews from $5-$6.50 or you can get a 40 of PBR for $2.50 at the place and you never see anyone drinking 40s. And most of these large breweries are trying to put out quality products to compete, Coors in my opinion tastes terrible but they produce Blue Moon which is a fine beer for a budget.

[pintobean]

13. Agree, and AB provides a lot of union jobs

and they build union. I support companies that support unions. I'll enjoy a microbrew once in a while, but if I'm stocking my fridge, or a cooler, I'm going with AB products.

[alarimer]

14. And chances are they will ruin it.

Change the formula or how it's made, something.

It is the artisanal nature craft brewing that makes it appealing. Once the giant behemoths get their claws on something good, they will ruin it. It's true for just about everything.

[seveneyes]

6. People still buy pre made Beer?

As easy as it is to assemble malt, hops and yeast, it sounds like it.

[Action_Patrol]

7. I prefer homemade water.

Rank amateurs. I still prefer to mix my own hydrogen and oxygen

[seveneyes]

8. I used to make H2O, but the noise would upset the people down the road

[Throd]

9. Who cares who made it? If it tastes good, drink it!

Reminds me of when an obscure hipster band signs a contract and then some of their original fans denigrate them as "sell-outs".

[hifiguy]

10. There are too many small brewers to buy.

I ony buy locally made beer - Grain Belt (a New Ulm product), Surly (Minneapolis) and Summit (St Paul). Good stuff!