An article from bloomberg business on the death of American beer

So, I was researching why a bottle of premium price beer tasted like a BMC with food coloring, and found this article. It made me very angry and sad and more inspired to tighten my homebrew production schedule so something is always ready:
http://mobile.businessweek.com/articles/2012-10-25/the-plot-to-destroy-americas-beer

A local guy won a mdel at The Great American Beer Festival. I was looking for info. and found that article.

My interpretation was more of a "Death of mass produced beer" in America. Micros and Nanos seem to be flourishing.

Oh - also have you heard of "Batch 19"? The company places their name in fine print.

I think they are trying to market better beer and act like they never forgot about brewing good beer in lieu of maximizing profits.

This article is so full of BS.

1) The recipe for Becks and Hoegarden has not changed. Even when it comes to the water, beer chemists are sophisticated enough that they can accurately mimic any water profile anywhere in the world. Drinkers might "think" it's different once they know it's brewed somewhere else, but it most certainly is exactly the same.

2) The article is demonizing InBev for buying hops from the lowest bidder? Who with any business sense DOESN'T buy their supplies from the lowest bidder? Lower quality, less flavorful HALLERTAU hops? Come on, they are making Bud Light here, not Paulaner Hefeweizen.

The whole thing is just a witch hunt. I don't like the yellow fizzy stuff any more than the next homebrewer, but there's nothing wrong with InBev. They serve their purpose. All the points the article tries to make about InBev's business practices could probably just as easily be said about Sam Adams or Sierra Nevada or any other brewery of scale. They are just taking the tough decisions of business and acting like InBev is making all the wrong choices, but they most certainly are not on average and everyone in business makes mistakes.

Bad article in my estimation. It's like someone took all of the "evil corporation" and "sh**ty mass produced beer" buzzwords/talking points and lumped then together into one piece, feeding on public opinion with litte regard for any insight or originality. Lazy work.

unionrdr said:

I don't get why this goes on in this country. We have laws against monopolizing that are tossed aside religiously. We need another president like Teddy Roosevelt. He didn't put up with such nonsense,busting 25 different companies fro monopolizing.

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Are you saying that as soon as a business reaches a certain level of success it should be destroyed on principle? I don't get it. InBev is not a monopoly, not by a long shot.

Already been posted. There's a 19 page thread on this here:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/ni...ying-destroy-good-beer-higher-profits-363728/


Rev.

Gameface said:

Are you saying that as soon as a business reaches a certain level of success it should be destroyed on principle? I don't get it. InBev is not a monopoly, not by a long shot.

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There's a huge difference between growing your own company & just swallowing up all the competition. That's a monopoly. They are most def a monopoly by definition alone.

They are most def a monopoly by definition alone

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Union, I typically agree with you on all things brewing, but I think you need to look up the definition of the word monopoly

InBev has around a 25% market share worldwide and a little under 50% market share in the US. A "monopoly by definition alone" is a company that has 100% market share, and the government DOES get involved when any company starts pushing 70-75% market share (unless you are in professional sports, apparently). Luckily, InBev is really NO WHERE CLOSE.

If InBev bought out MillerCoors (19% market share in the US), then the government would take a pretty close look, but even then, they wouldn't be particularly close to a monopoly. I'm pretty sure the FTC would approve that merger.

Joy and Pain. Sunshine and Rain. 80s style philosophy!!

The way I look at it, you can't appreciate anything in life without experiencing it's opposite. Without InBev/MillerCoor's mass beer, we wouldn't appreciate craft beer.

They are the organized (enter large denomonation here) church. Some people need the Catholic Church, a smaller % of people can think for themselves. My mom would be insanely depressed without her church. I would be insanely depressed in it.

I learned a LONGGGG time ago that trying to make other people think/act/drink like me is an utter waste of time, and even if I were successful, it'd cheapen my personal brand, so live and let live.....even with InBev!!

TopherM said:

This article is so full of BS.

1) The recipe for Becks and Hoegarden has not changed. Even when it comes to the water, beer chemists are sophisticated enough that they can accurately mimic any water profile anywhere in the world. Drinkers might "think" it's different once they know it's brewed somewhere else, but it most certainly is exactly the same.

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Changing the most common ingedient in beer would certainly change the recipe. Changing the supplier of the grain would change the recipe. Changing maltsters would change the recipe. In fact, the barley itself would change due to its growing conditions. Every new shipment of grain would be different. In these mass-produced beers, you can bet that the recipe is in constant flux.

In these mass-produced beers, you can bet that the recipe is in constant flux.

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C'est la vie....in my expierience and opinion, these mass produced beers are like McDonalds, they DEPEND on the product staying consistent over time and space, and go to great lengths to make sure the product stays consistent. It's the main underlying principle of their entire brand - a beer in San Francisco is going to taste the same as that beer in Atlanta, and both are going to taste the same as the one you had when you were 21. The only thing in flux is the methods they use to ensure that consistency.

I have just casually wondered, could the difference between German Becks and American Becks be the lack of the signature flavor of many Euro lagers enjoyed in the United States, green bottle shipped across the Atlantic skunk? I haven't really tasted much of either, but I kind of wonder.

I don't know for sure, but I can point you to quite a few second-hand sources that says that Becks is made with hop extract, making it unskunkable.

I've had enough Becks/Heiniken/Stella, etc. to know what people are talking about when they THINK that they are skunked, but I would venture to say that every commercial beer served in clear/blue/green bottles use hop extract and are impossible to skunk. Skunk is a sulphur compound, and I know for a fact that Germany has lots of hot sulphur springs, so it could be as simple as the original water source having more sulpher compounds than we are used to in the states.

The whole "manufacturers don't care" or "manufacturers skunk the beer on purpose" just rings like a silly conspiracy theory to my common sense.

However smart you and I are when it comes to beer, the guy making the decision to put the beer in clear/blue/green bottles is inevitably much, much smarter.

The thing is not the cheap beer. It's cheap beer. Whatever.

The thing is that the premium beer is made with a cheap beer mindset, and sold like like its DogfishHead or Stone. I wouldn't mind buying a cheap beer knowing I was going to go for cheap beer. I mind buying a mid range or expensive beer and discovering that a brand I knew and trusted has been used to trick me into paying a premium for what is, at heart, cheap beer.

Gotcha....in the grand scheme of things, then, it's all about market value and supply/demand. They marketed it as premium, they sell it at a premium, and people must buy it at a premium, even though it's just a shade more premium than BMC when you start talking about production costs.

When I was in Ireland a few years back, you could go to any pub and get Guiness or Bass for about $2.00 US a royal pint all over town, but Budweizer was a "premium import" that they sold for $4-5 US a royal pint.

In the grand scheme of things, it's all worth what people will pay for it. Any brewer knows that I DFH 60 costs about the same to produce as a DFH 90 and DFH 120 (a little extra grain, a little extra hops as you move up), yet at my local pub the DFH 60 is $4.50 a pint and the DFH 120 is $8.00. It's all in the presentation :cross:

I think this article has already been posted and discussed at

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/nice-article-how-ab-inbev-trying-destroy-good-beer-higher-profits-363728/