Craft Beer

In a Post-Craft World, Let’s Just Try Transparency

My new column in BeerAdvocate Magazine this month is out and has already sparked some heated exchanges on Twitter.

I’ve always been a drink whatever I like kinda consumer, basically drinking something that interests me or hopefully just tastes good. Beer politics are always fun debating among buddies but it doesn’t often influence my beer choices. I drink local, I drink foreign, I drink big and small, and sometimes domestic big brewery lager is the call to make. But we’ve seen some recently acquired craft brands and owners pulling some squirrelly shit, trying to deny what they are and who they’re owned by. Thus, this column.

If you’re a Big Beer-affiliated brewery, own that. Don’t hide it. In your company’s “About Us” or “Brewery History” page online, don’t omit that AB InBev owns you as almost every formerly independent and now High End brewery does. Don’t play cute about it with the press. Stop telling consumers nothing has changed. Anyone saying that is either lying or negligently naive.

So check out the column and feel free to hit up the entertaining BeerAdvocate comments section. It’s also Plus a particularly sweet illustration by the man I’ve never met but who always has my back and I owe a few beers, Chi-Yun Lau. Also check out his insta and Twitter.

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