Look at Lagunitas sale to Heineken last month. http://www.chicagotribune.com/dining/ct-lagunitas-magee-talks-heineken-sale-20150908-story.html


or LA's biggest brewer, Golden Road (Run by Deadheads too...shame) selling to AB/InBev..... http://www.chicagotribune.com/dining/ct-lagunitas-magee-talks-heineken-sale-20150908-story.html

Just like in Silicon Valley. People make a product (most times gimmicky) just to flip it and turn a quick buck/retirement money. No desire in creating a quality product, or developing it out to its fullest potential and seeing it through growing pains and rough patches. That's not to dismiss or downplay the competition/market pressures from going up against the big players, but it's only making them more powerful and the challenge insurmountable in the end.

I despise 'Hipster Hatred' .... It's just regular, plain ole hatred, as far as I am concerned ...

Be assured, so called 'Hipsters' drink lots of different beers ... plain and simple fact ...

Me - give me an IPA and the stronger the better!

Full Sail was a painful loss, as was Widmer (who's Hefeweizen I had to stop buying because it is now owned, lock and stock and Keg, by AB INBEV ....

I refuse to play - I will only buy local beers that are still independent ... my choice ...

Buy up and hoard hops to keep it out the hands of the craft brewers. I know some brewers. This is happening.

The brewers I'm referring to run a regional brewpub with approximately 450000 gallons a year. While they grow some of their own hops or get some from a small circle of friends for special projects, they depend on big suppliers for the commercial product.

I've been lucky enough to get very excellent limited batches from them.

and the whole thing will collapse, putting some growers out of business.

Monopolies always pull this shit and they now qualify as a monopoly.

We have antitrust laws. I wish we'd stop having morons in charge who are so smugly "business friendly." They need to split these mega companies apart, not allow them to get bigger and more predatory.

They will never convert me.

I'll just drink more wine and spirits if craft beer isn't available which is what I do now if I can't get a good beer somewhere.

yup, i will switch to wine.
broke my heart when goose island sold out. they pretty much started the whole craft brewing thing.
they still own the brew pubs, so i can always go there to get some good beer, but i dont buy it in bottles any more. too many good ones out there.

the big ace in the hole here is that good beer is a local thing, and i am lucky to live in one of the beer capitals of the world, chicago.

How are they able to break the anti trust laws? Did they buy someone off? Sounds like big beer needs to be broken up!

is deader than King Tut. Has been since the days of Zombie King Raygun.

If beer is good you drink it, you don't care how big the company is that makes it. I like Microbrews, I like PBR, I like Blue Moon. They taste good, for every Microbrewery that sells out there are 3 more to pop up and take it's place. The people that win in this race are us the consumers, when a microbrew sells out their product will be available everywhere instead of just a small region.

If (for example) Heineken somehow fucks up Lagunitas and their beer changes, then I will stop drinking it. If, however, they leave their Lagunitas subsidiary alone, and it stays the same, then I'm going to keep drinking it.

The Big 5 are buying up craft breweries because they want to sell what they're making, not destroy it. And if they do, well, like you said, 3 more independents will take their place.

I still drink beers that were microbrews but were purchased and they still taste good. I did not drink them in the first place because they were small, I drank it because it was good beer. If we demand good beer then that is what we will get, if the big brewers produce crap there is a person out there right now who wants to deliver me something great.

Grain Belt, Summit and Surly.

All Minnesota-owned and Minnesota-brewed.

Big Beer can shove it where the monkey put the nuts.

for about thirty years. Used to collect their wildlife cans when I was a kid.

These:



There were a couple series of them in the early 1970s.

If you cross the border, New Glarus (WI) is still locally owned and they put out some good beers. Go around the Twin Cities and NE Minneapolis and you will find many small taprooms with good microbrewers. There are many good options without going to the big names.

and they are dee-lish. A friend of mine comes up to Wisconsin to visit his family every summer and always stocks up on New Glarus brews before stopping by my place in Mpls.

another example of greed trying to destroy quality .

It bums me out that it's seasonal.

although I can't quite recall if it was in the 70's or the 80's, that small breweries were dropping like flies, and it looked like pretty soon we'd be down to maybe four big breweries, all brewing crap beer.

Then people who cared about beer and knew how to brew it came along, and lo and behold, we have a plethora of good small breweries. Yeah, some of them have sold out. That will continue to happen. Meanwhile, small breweries will spring up in their place.

I think every state in the union has small breweries. I try to patronize the ones here in New Mexico every chance I get. When I'm in other states I try their craft beers. They're always good.

And I'm quite frankly really surprised that the SEC is allowing this to go through. It would create a monopoly the likes of which have never been seen in history. Add to the fact that Anheuser Busch is buying up craft breweries left and right like Golden Road in LA and Goose Island in Chicago, this is something that could effectively kill the beer industry.

of unregulated capitalism - the highest price charged by monopolies for the shittiest quality product that will sell. It's a feature, not a bug.

So lauganitas sold out, Well I guess I'm looking for another brew, Shit, now the corporations are even killing good beers , This is Way out of hand, Poisoning our food, Destroying the planet, Stealing our water, Avoiding taxes offshore, Profiteering off of incarcerating people, And some people vote for the status quo or worse, WTF?

havent even had a chance to check out the brewpub.
shit.

Small batches, very short supply, high demand. Lines of cars waiting for the weekly deliveries (many from out-of-state.) I don't think VT will see a drop in micro brews unless someone makes it illegal (again.)

thanks to a beer geek friend who has a pal in Vermont.

It is the first fully-licensed co-op brewery in the state of Washington, and (if I remember correctly) one of only 3 or 4 in the US.

We are up to almost 1600 owner/members, and currently have 13 wonderful brews on tap from our custom-made 7-barrel brew system. Our head brewer has a 25-year history in Seattle, and we've been getting noticed in the regional (and some national) brewing publications. One of our beers (Bike Rye'd Saison) was being served a couple of weeks ago at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver, in the Washington Brewer's Alliance booth.

We've done collaboration brews with other local micro breweries, and are on tap for growler fills at Central Co-op. We have a collaboration brew on tap in our tasting room as well as the brewpub next door!

The brewery was built using about 85% member/owner volunteer labor (we hired the electrician, plumber, and person that installed out ADA wheelchair life for the rear emergency exit...basically the things that needed licenses, permits, and inspections).

Many of our member/owners are home brewers, and our basic philosophy is 'Member-driven Beer'. We held competitions for various styles, and the members voted for their favorites. Our brewer then scales up the typical 5-gallon home-brew recipe to the 230 gallons, and we put those on tap. We also have a few 'Brewer's Handles' where we let him have pretty free reign to come up with interesting and tasty brews. One of his recent ones is a Belgian Strong Ale that clocks in at about 9.4% alcohol, but really doesn't give you any indication that it is that high. Super tasty, and not 'alcoholic' at all.

Our CDA (Cascade Dark Ale) is my favorite. It's a sort of black IPA, but not the usual in-your-face hops...this one os extremely well-balanced and smooth.

There's a little independent sandwich shop next door, and they have a special menu for us - you can order your food and beer, the food ticket prints out next door and the bring it over when it's ready. This has been a very good working relationship for both of us.

Here's the web site with some info about the co-op and what we've been doing:

http://www.flyingbike.coop

We also have a Facebook presence:

https://www.facebook.com/flyingbikecoop

If you're in the Seattle area, drop by! We're right on Greenwood Avenue in the north end, and we're loving this 'co-op model' of doing things. Even as the big guys buy out some of the smaller ones there are new ones popping up all over the place. This is a great time to enjoy craft beers.

It sounds like you have a vibrant and rewarding endeavor going on there, well done!



Julie

After a few weeks we realized that business was good enough for us to open on a 7-day schedule. From the times I've been in for a brew or three it looks like we have a pretty steady flow of customers. We are a 'bring your own food' kind of place, or you can have it delivered (doesn't have to be from the sandwich place next door). We also welcome (well-behaved) dogs and children. Not really a 'pub' vibe to it - much more like a neighborhood gathering place, with good beer.

It's a great feeling to sit at a table (or the bar), sip a brew, and look around knowing that you helped to build the place from a large empty space to what we have now, and that your input on some details were definitely taken into consideration. Even the brewpub right next door to us doesn't look at us as competition, but as a member of the brewing community...and it's a friendly, fun, and welcoming community. (Their head brewer joined as a member of the co-op!)

always includes a stop at Butternut's Brewery...

foreign brews, and hope they don't block them from
entry into the country..

Tsingtao
Asahi
Sapporo
Kirin
Yebisu

Corporate shills trying to make one mega conglomerate. Hopefully the ones who want brand and style diversity win and everything gets broken up.

Drink what you like, or make your own. All the various machinations of beer companies notwithstanding, there's beer enough for everyone.