I hope that this does not change how NB does business. They have always been reasonably priced or the best with great customer service. I buy some of my stuff from them but no one online can beat prices on the bulk items I buy like sacks of grain. Shipping is too expensive. So to the LHBS I go. Neither one can beat bulk hops direct from a hop farm.
I stumbled onto the forum a long time ago, was asked to moderate but never had any requirements to meet. Found it to be one of the most friendly forums of any kind. If that doesnāt change, not all that much will change for me.
I do not like how big brewing controls the distributorship. Distributor A can not deliver the same beer distributor B sells. āAā strong arms a bar into selling their product by making them a ādealā they canāt refuse. B replies with something else. Sure thatās business but in the mean time customers may not get what they want. I can see this at the bar just up the street from us. My wife drinks Miller Lite. He did not have it for months because he was either battling the Miller distrib or the Bud one gave him a great deal on something. It got to the point where she said āletās not come here anymoreā sad since it is within walking distance and no others are. Miller is back now thankfully.
Iām thinking this will be good for the price point but bad for the little guys, the LHBS. Its the same approach as Walmart, grow as fast as possble, increase your buying power and push out the small guy. The sad thing is that there is not enough brewers to push back plus if we all go somewhere else, they will just buy them out. Once AB is in, there is no way to get them out and its just disappointing. It wonāt be long before we see NB kits that resemble the beers that they own so folks will buy them to compare to what they brewed. Its double profit at that point. Iām going to do my best not to buy NB anymore.
Although I enjoy the forum (as much as I enjoy any forum), I have not made a lot of purchases from NB. When I first started brewing back in the 19??'s I made my first purchases from two LHBS, (well, 2 hrs drive), and still use them. Hopefully the level of service for those that use NB will not change.
To look up the list of global breweries owned by InBev is awesome. I took particular interest in how many UK breweries were on that list. Just three out of 1285. Bass, Boddingtons and Whitbread which to my mind never brewed a beer worth the effort of drinking. While most of the rest are rated as Private Brewery Pubs a few big names still survive independently of InBev, such as Fullers, Samuel Smith and Shepherd Neame. Say 20 years ago the big breweries owned the pubs which were run by tenants who could only buy from their parent brewery. Then the law was changed and demanded that the breweries had to sell of a high percentage of their pubs. This was when the small pubs failed in their droves as there isnāt much profit in beer meaning one had to also sell food. This is when the āFree Houseā pubs blossomed meaning that they were āfreeā to stock any make of beer that their customers wanted. The bottom line here is that InBev were only able to buy UK breweries and pubs that were the least popular and have since been forced to upgrade the food side of this business. So InBev do not have a magic wand that only picks out winners, but they do have deep pockets with which to improve their purchases. So their buying NB may have positive results.
I for one, will be throwing in the towel for both NB & MWS. I have spent hundreds of dollars to both over the past ~10 years & have a 6 keezer system & a custom built-in-wall 180 bottle wine rack to back that up. Having grown up in STL & having AB as a big local co was once a proud part of me being a st louisian, but their sellout to in bev a few years back cut me off from buying any of their products 100%. I read a story a few months back on how they had bought a micro brewery in Virginia which was deeply rooted with micro brewers along with annual events. Not anymore as this year was the last of the events. Now buying out NB & WMS after all their anti craft brew adds just goes to show they are a greedy corporate schmuck that only care about profit margins & less about quality. I feel sorry for the hard workers at NB & MWS since they did nothing wrong & have contributed to the success of NB & MWS, but I refuse to send my hard earned cash overseas to a greedy monopoly who are set on being biggest, even after they already are.
Letās just hope this forum doesnāt become a profit loser and inconvenience to InBev . Hopefully they will realize that that thousands of questions get answered here that could have resulted in a phone call to them. Of course they could deflect the calls to a call center in India where they make in a year what call center employees make in a month here then they can read from a script so you never get an answer. Donāt get me started
Probably the only changes will be any post making derogatory comments about in Bev beers will be flagged and deleted. I thought about not posting here but Iāll hang out for awhile and knock in Bev beers and companies. I know your listening
You have no idea how tempted I am to flood the recipe thread with things like āStack that paper, sonā lager brewed with rice, corn syrup, and aged on beechwood chips. But I feel bad for the NB moderator having to really be careful about this place. I was halfway expecting some sort of response on the forum from someoneā¦ NB had a couple of users on here at one point.
Some of the craft beers they have acquired arenāt bad. While down in Florida I found Goose Island (from Chicago haha) Honkers Ale in the grocery and thought I would try it. Not bad. Then I see on the bottle ābrewed in Baldwinsville NYā hmmm I live about 30 min from Bāville and the only brewery there is a giant AB. I didnāt know at the time AB-IB bought them.
This must be clone brew in large scale. I will admit I never tasted a Goose Island beer before they bought them so I canāt tell if the beer is better, worse or the same.
Dave was made a moderator at almost the same time he decided to leave the forum due to the format change. I assume the management removed his moderator status. Iām happy to see he does still stop by now. He added lots of knowledge and conversation.
I agree with the David and Goliath thing. Bigger is not always better.
Here is something to consider. I work for a company that has been taken over by larger companies. When a smaller company is taken over, sometimes the larger company evaluates that company and decides that it is working well. They sometimes leave it alone to run as it was and just take advantage of the income stream. Often that large company does not step in to make changes because they understand that if it aināt broke, donāt fix it.
If however the customer base of that smaller company becomes aggressive and abandons the smaller company out of protest, then the smaller company will begin to fail. At that point, the larger company will step in and begin to make changes. My point is, the consumer can cause the self fulfilling prophecy.
We know that we, the consumer has no say in whether or not In Bev takes over NB. WE cannot control that. We can control our own behavior. If we just carry on and do as we are doing today, perhaps In Bev will look at this organization and just say āHey, itās working well, leave it aloneā. In such case there is nothing to be concerned about. If on the other hand we protest and fight, then we are basically inviting the mother ship to come in and start making changes. The big picture statement is, donāt react unless there is something about which a reaction is required. This is not a hostile takeover by In Bev. In Bev simply made an offer to NB and they accepted.
AB-InBev certainly buys lots of malt. Maybe we can get a good deal. Or maybe they can low ball the price and kill other small home brew shops. Online or not.
We wonāt know how it will unfold until some time passes so there is no sense in driving ourselves nuts worrying about it.
Iām just teasing you. But how about this scenario. Your company was bought by another company that did or sold things you found morally offensive. Would you stay for the money and hope they changed their ways?
