Chris Herron of Creature Comforts Brewing recently published an insightful and wonkish article about why Corporate Beer is interested in buying Craft beer brands.  Hint: it’s not because they want to make better beer.

If you are at all interested in craft brewing, this article is a must-read, so check it out.

Ok, here are a few key excerpts for TLDR sake:

By buying craft brands and lowering the price, they can reduce the price-to-consumers, and force the hand of other craft brewers (particularly large regionals) to lower their price-to-consumer to compete. These price reductions on craft beer shrink the gap between AB InBev’s premium legacy brands and craft brands…

 

While everyone thinks that AB InBev is truly interested in getting into craft and building these brands (which is a secondary goal at best), I submit that maybe buying craft breweries is more of a tool to devalue the craft category and increase the brand equity of their core legacy beers…

 

This is why, from a business prospective, it sucks when an independent craft brewery “sells out” to AB InBev. For us in the industry, we are trading out a collaborator for a competitor, and I personally just don’t believe the repetitive press releases that say the deal is best option for the craft brand and for the employees. Maybe everyone really believes that from the middle on down at AB InBev. But ultimately, it has a much bigger purpose to serve first, before the value it creates for itself can ever be appreciated.

Well said. TOTH to my friend Ben Freund, excellent homebrewer and lover of all things craft beer, for sending this to me.  Craft on.