Say hello to your new Brazillian and Belgian overlords. Good luck with your brands and products; too bad it’s not about beer. Look for them to focus on a small number of products, market the hell out of them, and drop the rest. It’s the InBev/Interbrew formula.
The silver lining appears to be that their brewpubs are not part of the deal. Hopefully you can still go there and get a wide range of great beers and a good meal. The original Goose Island pub in Chicago is up there with Great Lakes as one of my favorites in the midwest.
I think they’ve been partly owned by them for a while.
They have, through ABInbev’s stake in the Craft Brewer’s Alliance. That was really about distribution, though. The big guys have Illinois tied up pretty tight and you only see a few craft brands in grocery and convenience stores, which is where your casual beer drinker is buying beer. It’s quite a contrast to go to the PNW and see all those local beers at Albertson’s or Safeway.
I’m taking a wait and see attitude on this. John Hall is still there but his son Greg, the head brewer, is leaving. OTOH, they’d already dropped my two favorite beers, their Nut Brown and Oatmeal Stout.
Just like I posted on BeerAdvocate, as long as their beer doesn’t change, I’m okay with this. I’m not happy with it, no, but just don’t change the beer! Maybe they’ll start bottling and distributing the oatmeal stout again (fingers crossed).
For me at least there’s a silver lining; I might start seeing some more new products down here, as it is a Anheuser-Busch-centric city.
The Wife just said that the HopCat a heck of a good beer bar in Grand Rapids MI, has announced they will no longer serve Goose Island products.
She saw this on Facebook.
Did they say why? Cheers!!!
I’ll go out on a limb and say it’s due to the A-B news… 
Bingo! I looked at the Facebook page for HopCat, and they called Goose Island “sell-outs”.
Then they fail to understand it’s a business, not a public service. Sure, GI wants to make and sell the best beer possible, but the objective for them (or any other brewery) is to make money for the owners and stay in business.
Their quote. One of the most true statements I had ever heard on brewing was made by Larry Bell during a beer weekend in Frankenmuth around 96-97. During his talk he quoted a guy (from Strohs I think) saying there is only one reason to open a brewery “to make money”.
It is just a business.
Due to the success of 312, GI decided to drop the brown ale and the oatmeal stout. Maybe they’ll add it back after expanding production capacity.
So does this mean that every company, no matter how small or large, has the ultimate goal of becoming (or being bought out by) Walmart, AB, or Microsoft?
Time will tell for many of the breweries in the first wave. Sierra Nevada and Bells have the founders kids working in the brewery, and I think those will stay under family control.
Then there are the ones like GI (how old is John Hall?), Boston Beer (Jim Koch is 60), and Widmer (part of CBA, but Kurt Widmer is 58 and the CEO). Those guys are closer to the end of their career than the begining. We see the path that GI went down, and the son was the Brewmaster there, now gone. Who knows about the others?
Well, I obviously can’t speak for every company, but why would a company exist other than to make money? Witness the current T Mobile/ATT deal.
Right.
And if they (AB-InBev) managed to keep up the quality that brought attention to the Goose in the first place, it’s not a big deal, nor is it a bad thing. Putting aside the silly mega-tun (LOL) hatred of big brewers, the fact is that AB’s own line of craft products demonstrates that the capability is there to throw some support behind some better beers, even if they are just tiptoeing into the new reality that folks are looking for more flavor.
With reference to an earlier comment in the thread, it seems to me that a ‘good beer bar’ that would stop carrying a good beer just because it is probably about to become considerably more maistream just seems hypocritical to me…like they are more interested in an elitist approach rather than one truly based on taste and quality. Frankly, that’s not the kind of ‘good beer bar’ that would get my support (or even qualify as a ‘good beer bar’ in my book).
I’m not an apologist or big fan of AB-InBev, but they’ve proven in recent years that they can make really good beers with some character. If they do actually manage to “goose” the capacity and productivity of their new acquisition, while leaving GI/Fulton Street alone with regard to the things that make the beers the quality products that they are presently, then this deal is not only a win for the founders of the company (the $$$$ that represent the main reason one goes into business) as well as for the consumer as a result of wider availability.
After complaining for years that the big brewers have no interest in better beer, it’s ironic to begrudge them now for responding to what people say they wanted in the first place.
As far as HopCat’s Facebook page calling Goose Island “sellouts”…well that’s just too dumb to even bother responding to.
Here’s more on the story from Greg Hall:
It sounds like control of things will stay in Chicago, but time will tell.
I guess I’m trying to figure out the line between “making money” and “making more money”. Does every restaurant want to franchise?
Good point and I think the answer is most likely no. I think there are differing definitions of success involved here. I don’t think people own businesses solely to make money. Money is a big part of it, yes, but they open business most often because they feel they have something to offer the market.
Obviously, making money is a part of being successful. But Goose Island was, in no way, failing as a company before. I don’t think they needed to “sell out” to A-B in order to stay afloat. I think GI is good enough of a brewery with enough success that they could’ve expanded on their own.
But, I guess I’m in the dark about this…