A recent public back-and-forth between Pete Coors of Molson Coors and Nikos Ridge of Ninkasi Brewing sheds some light on the state of the brewing industry today.

Coors took a shot at the Craft beer world in open letter to the Brewing Association.  Read the entire letter here.  TLDR:

 All small brewers want to grow to become big, and all big brewers were once small.  Lots of distributers of craft beer won’t distribute Corporate beer, and this is unfair.  Calling some breweries craft and others not-craft is insulting to Corporate brewers and damages the industry as a whole. Turning the beer world against itself hurts the whole industry when we should be working together to stave off competition from wine, booze, and pot.

Craft Beer Responds

A response was written by Nikos Ridge, President of Ninkasi Brewing.  TLDR:

What is damaging the industry is Corporate brewers using their advertising and market position to deliberately confuse customers about a beer’s origins.  Corporate Beer does so in order to ride on the coattails of craft beer’s hard-won popularity.   It is important for craft brewers take a stand and point out these lies and the damage they cause.  Plenty of retailers won’t carry Craft beers, or won’t carry larger or non-local Craft brands;  the solution to this is to create relationships, not to mislead customers by buying Craft brands.  Craft brewers have more in common with craft distillers, small wineries, and even marijuana producers than the do with Corporate beer.

One spot is worth quoting in its entirety:

What’s insulting is for you to lie to craft beer customers about the origins of their beer and then argue that it’s a problem when we [craft brewers] point it out. Why don’t you call it “MillerCoors Hop Valley?” Because you know what you purchased is the ability to lie to customers and to cash in on craft credibility.

 

Well said.  Most of Coors’ arguments are right out of the Crafty playbook, and have thus been repeated ad nauseam by Corporate beer.  The horrible video made by the brewers formerly known as Wicked Weed in the days after their sell-out is exhibit A.  All of these points have been thoroughly debunked here and elsewhere.

What undermines our collective credibility is when large brewers lie about origins, trick and confuse customers, while legislating against other tiers of the industry, and creating global mega-mergers that drive down choice and increase monopoly power.

Craft on.