Can anyone explain to me how this is any different from Walmart, Home Depot and big pharma.
This is not ab praying on lowly homebrewers. It’s just big business. Do you also avoid Walmart, homedepot and name brand drugs?
I don’t understand this one. They are some of the most technologically advanced breweries in the world and get first access to raw materials. Why don’t they just make their own craft beers? Seems silly to me to spend money to acquire breweries when they could just brew a stable of great “craft” beers.
Hence my point that they are not driven purely by rational economic concerns. Some things they do just don’t make business sense, but seem more psychologically driven. In that, yes, it seems different from big box stores. These stores are delivering what you want how you want at the price you want. ABI is pissed off at what you want, or something.
(Again with the South African hops: the market they gained control of is not monetarily nearly worth what they conceded to get it. But they can now play “keep away” with a product others, but not necessarily themselves, are interested in.)
You might want to read this…and do a search for “inbev” while you are there.
Great article. I start to see the South African hops differently now, if I’m understanding this; they acquire a means of throttling back immediate competition, and offset the cost by avoiding future impairment charges on the brands they shed in North America. This supports my suspicion that their entry into the seemingly unattractive homebrew market is part of an attempt to gain control of access to the imported grains in question in this topic – important to craft, not their legacy brands – as a means of throttling back the same competition. They needn’t even be in for the long haul.
They’d have to own something like BSG for what you are saying to be valid. I don’t see NB as a way of throttling craft brewers access to continental grains.
Yeah, I said “part of an attempt…” I know I even sound to myself like a bit of a conspiracy theorist in this, but we don’t know what the fly on the wall in the boardroom does, and this line of thinking puts rational business strategy back in place of a giant, corporate hissy fit.
They would also have to own Country Malt Group, which is owned by Great Western/Canada Maltings and they are owned by an AU maltster.
BSG is owned by Rahr.
There are some other European malts i,ported by LD Carlson (Avangard and Swaen) and GW Kent (Durst).
It would be hard to lock down all of the supply.
The things AB/InBev have done to the craft breweries is alarming. Now that they have their foot in the door with homebrewing supplies they obviously have an ulterior motive not necessarily involving the money to be made by such, which is precisely why I won’t buy anything even remotely tainted by them.
And I won’t shop at Walmart either. I’m not against big business. I’ll buy a Blue Moon or Coors when there aren’t better options, and I still like Foster’s ESB (now known as Premium Ale).
They don’t have to own the above mentioned importers or producers. Just look at their impact on beverage distribution. They only need to be, in certain markets, significant distributors. They can then manipulate pricing and access within the market. They can also then be in a position to negotiate more favorable distribution arrangements with producers.
(Eventually there might be some acquisitions? )
While I heartily disagree with the “Snidely Whiplash” interpretation of EVERYTHING AB does, I agree with the sentiment that everyone gets to decide where thier money goes.
What we are trying to say is that Northern Brewer isn’t a major supplier of grain to breweries, at least not to my knowledge. I would imagine that the larger malt supply houses handle that function.
Just saying it’s a foot in the door. Establishing a relationship.
AB/InBev, by buying NB, is doing research. This area of brewing, OUR AREA, is a thorn in their side and what better way to get to know your enemy, which I am sure is how they characterize craft beer AND home brewing, than to buy into it. The cost of craft breweries is for them small and to buy into the homebrewing market even smaller. Sometimes we have to look past our own wallets to see the true costs we are facing.
And no, I will NOT shop at wal-mart. Just because they are now America’s largest employer does not mean they are a good employer.
Well I’ve watched the two documentaries which have shown what they’ve done, as well as seeing what they are currently doing. So, much like Wal-Mart, they are bad. They certainly aren’t good for much more than themselves, and at the moment for those who truly love the craft beers they bought out and now sell cheaper.
Quite frankly I wish they weren’t able to buy their way out of their legal issues like they have but suffered the consequences like the small breweries would/have.
Again. Agree to disagree with you guys here. I have trouble believing that a niche market like homebrewers is a thorn in the side of a multinational brewing conglomerate. I’d say we are the 1% of even the craft beer drinking sector, so the fact that AB would by a homebrew supply company, however large, to crush homebrewers, is a bit silly.
I’ll stress this again though: everyone gets to brew how they want and that includes how and where they spend their dollars.
Apparently, we have more influence than it would seem. It’s not just us, it’s our friends whom we convert away from BMC beer, our suppliers, including MoreBeer and the rest, the craft breweries that we patronize and the ones that we start. We are a movement to be reckoned with, and as a multinational conglomerate they want to eliminate us. It’s not exactly evil, it’s what big business does; they try to monopolize the industry. Of course their objective is at odds with ours. We want choice and low prices; they want to be the only choice and charge the prices they want to. It’s business, boys.
AB Knows where the Craft Beer movement started…Home Brewers…Pretty sure these moves are not altruistic.
2 50# bags of Briess 2-row shipped to Denver…2 bags to try to beat the $59 MoreBeer shipping (didn’t work)
MoreBeer $161.08 $1.61 per lb
NB $129.74 $1.30 per lb
MIdwest $107.98 $1.08 per lb
If I owned a LHBS, I would try to beat the MW price on bulk…
I recall this same discussion here when ABInbev bought Northern Brewer and Midwest. It is not about crushing homebrewers, but it definitely could be about crushing LHBS and online competitors. Trying not to be paranoid, but I have read a fair amount of beer history and it points to oligopoly as the way beer markets cycle.
It’s awfully silly and hubristic to think we have that kind of influence, but paranoia and conspiracy are the hallmarks of much of this thread anyway.
In the end, I agree with your statement wholeheartedly about the nature of business. I will point out that not even NB can drop the bottom out on ALL continental grains. Do a side by side on Weyermann at all the online retailers and you’ll see they are pretty much equivalent. The prices for things like Rahr and Briess on NB represent the most extreme stuff there, with some continental grains such as Dingemans base malts fairly low too.
Right now this “rock bottom” pricing only affects those who are buying grain by the pound.