Ryan Moses
Sep 6, 2018 · 5 min read
Photo courtesy of Brewers Association

The average craft beer drinker has little if any recognition of what the ABI High End is. If they walk into a bar and see a group of tap handles that read: Goose Island, 10 Barrel, Elysian, Golden Road, Blue Point, Breckenridge, Four Peaks, and Wicked Weed, they would think this place had a good and wide-ranging selection of craft beer. They would be wrong. Those are all ABI brands. The profits from those beers go to the same place as the profits of Bud Light.

This the next fight craft beer must wage against the big beer companies.

It used to be easy to tell craft beer from big beer. Big beer was all the familiar names from football game commercials: Bud, Bud Light, Miller, Miller Lite, Coors, Coors Light. That was who craft beer was battling for shelf space and tap handles.

Then Anheuser Busch bought Goose Island.

Josh Noel’s book Barrel Aged Stouts and Selling Out shows how Anheuser Busch screwed up the Goose Island roll out from the very beginning. No one understood the brand they bought nor the part of the industry it operated in.

They learned.

Much like the Borg of Star Trek, you may slow them down, but their ability to learn and adapt means you can never stop them.

Most big beer companies are like kaiju. They are large beasts intent on survival crushing and smashing anything hindering that.

ABI is different from the rest. It does still behave like a kaiju in its day to day operations particularly with its distribution network. As an international conglomerate, it behaves more like The Borg Collective.

What differentiates the Borg from most of the monsters of the week that Capt. Picard and his crew faced? The Borg are self-aware and adaptable. They assimilate or absorb populations and technologies instead of smashing worlds. Making you and everything you know part of the Borg. This allows the Borg to learn and change tactics as it swallows everything in its path.

That is what ABI is doing. Its ability to learn is on full display in Noel’s book as he describes all the subsequent craft beer purchases ABI made after Goose Island.

Reading how ABI learns and adapts with each purchase fills you with the same dread from watching the Borg learn and grow. They seem inevitable.

Part of that inevitability is making everything craft beer.

One of the tactics highlighted in Noel’s book is the idea ABI floated out that all beer was craft beer because all beer was crafted by brewers.

That is a rudimentary and hamfisted way of saying what they are doing in a more subtle fashion with their craft brand purchases.

Many bars in North Carolina still serve Wicked Weed. Why not? It still sells. Also, for the moment it is still brewed in NC. Again, the average person drinking craft beer has no idea who owns Wicked Weed.

That is exactly what these acquisitions are designed to do. First, eat up shelf space and tap handles from craft brewers. Second, muddy the waters for the average craft beer drinker in choosing craft beer.

If Wicked Weed is on tap, that means another craft beer isn’t on tap. Also, nowhere in any of the Wicked Weed advertising do you ever see who owns the company. ABI’s goal is for the average North Carolina drinker who knows just enough to know Wicked Weed is in Asheville, to buy it thinking they are supporting the beer industry in their home state.

That is why it matters whether you buy Pernicious by Wicked Weed or Jade by Foothills.

Buying one does nothing but fill the coffers of a multinational corporation who cares about the craft beer industry in North Carolina as much as you care about the inner monologue of a butterfly. Buying the other actually puts money back into the NC economy. It also helps promote the craft beer industry as a whole.

The essential argument made against big beer is this: A)They make crappy beer; B)Beer is simply a commodity to be traded and sold; C)They don’t care about beer as a craft; and D)The companies’ true care is for the well-being of its shareholders and not any locality.

As with many of the arguments we have in our modern world, craft beer versus big beer, is a proxy debate over the topic we really are debating.

This isn’t an argument against globalization. This is an argument against corporatization. This is an argument against a type of corporatization that prioritizes profits over product. These are the same arguments made against Anheuser Busch before it was purchased. It was the Borg before craft beer was born.

This about the divide between companies that stand for more than just the bottom line and companies whose sole objective is to enrich the pockets of its shareholders. These companies have no loyalty to any place or any individual.

In the past 10 years, the idea of a company prioritizing customer experience and employee satisfaction ahead of raking in as much profit as possible has grown.

This idea and the divide it has created is not solely the province of the beer industry. However, this tension is an almost built in aspect of how the beer industry functions.

The fundamental difference is this: Craft beer wants to tell you a story while sitting and having a beer with you. You’ll come back because the beer was good and maybe the story was better.

Big beer wants to sell you an easy to drink beer that borders on water so you can drink as much as you can. That way you will come back and buy more. Did you enjoy it? Doesn’t matter as long as you keep buying.

Purchasing a Foothills beer over a Wicked Weed beer is a small almost negligable jesture when an individual does it. When millions do is when it gets noticed. ABI and the other big beer companies notice and have been noticing for over 15 years now.

We have to keep them noticing. Pay attention to where your beer comes from. Buy beer from Foothills, The Bruery, Desthil, Cannonball Creek, Ninkasi, Captain Lawrence, or Arizona Wilderness if you want to keep them listening. What do those breweries have in common? They are all independent craft breweries in the same states as ABI brands. That is how we will win.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” — Margaret Mead

Ryan Moses

Written by

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade