This is an article on CNN.com, written by Tom Long of Coors. It appears as though they want to cry a little cause the craft brewers don’t want to include them!
http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/21/opinion/l ... ?hpt=hp_c2Considering the legislation which would make life harder for small brewers that MillerCoors has been pushing in Wisconsin lately, I had a hard time swallowing that statement.
I think it’s fair to judge a brewer by everything they brew - which is sometimes more than just beer.
When you acquire failing smaller breweries as subsidiaries and use your corporate edge to squeeze out some extra shelf-space and push out the competition you are not playing by the rules your crying ass is whining about here. Ask anyone who stocks shelves at grocery stores. Miller-Coors and Anheiser pay to take up shelf space so you don’t see the other options. You want to be included in the crowd? Stop playing dirty.
Some states even have legislation that says that small breweries can’t self-distribute which is BS. The distributors always side with AB-InBev and MillerCoors because they have so much product. If a small brewery wanted to get a distributor to handle it’s beer, it would be very tough… and they can’t do it themselves because it’s against the law. Nice. I like that level playing field. When the author of that piece said that they don’t consider craft beer to be a threat, what he meant to say was that he very much considered craft beer to be a threat. Otherwise he wouldn’t care that MillerCoors wasn’t included in the Craft Beer group.
