What the...... Me thinks Tony Magee, over at Lagunitas has finally lost it.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102341790
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102341790
What the...... Me thinks Tony Magee, over at Lagunitas has finally lost it.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102341790
Last thing the craft brew industry needs at the burgeoning of the industry is the start of bitter rivals. a long as it's not blatant theft of intellectual property, leave the rivalries for when the market saturated..right now its anybody's game and there's no end in sight for growth.
Ummm... this category has been around for 40 years... not "burgeoning" and the market is ALREADY saturated.
Just ask yourself, "without eliminating anyone, where would my grocery store put the next most famous IPA?"
Answer = get rid of someone else.
Ummmmm..... (what are we 5?)
burgeon [bur-juh n]
verb (used without object)
1. to grow or develop quickly; flourish:
Yes, the craft brew has been around for a long time, but you can't deny that it has grown rapidly within recent years, which is by definition burgeoning.
The craft brew industry is only saturated if you're stuck in a grocery store, using your example. However, tap rooms from big and small craft breweries alike, along with the growth of the brewpub industry and higher end craft brew bars are causing the industry to grow like crazy. A simple Google search will learn you of the growth of the industry.
I purchase about 75% of my craft brew from outside of the grocery store. And additionally stores are adding more and more craft brew than ever before, pushing other items out of the shelves. In my grocery store, not only did craft brew take over an entire fridge isle, but they are moving wines out and craft brews in.
Herein lies the problem with the way IP laws stand. He has to defend his trademark, as does anyone who has one. That's just the way the law is - if you dont defend your trademark, it gets diluted and, eventually, you can lose it. Unfortunately, that means a lot of silly lawsuits, usually from really big companies against really small (mom and pop) ones.
Craft brew sales volume hasn't grown in years. It's an increasingly high percent of a smaller and smaller market as less people drink beer overall.
The DOLLARS per sale have - due to rising prices, and the definition of "craft" to include micro's owned by Macros has added confusion (if you consider Blue Moon a micro, well then, we disagree). That plus new vendors like Whole Foods, Trader Joes, World of Beer, etc selling increasingly large "micro brewer" offerings has led to the look of proliferation in a decreasing market,
craft brewers reached 7.8 percent volume of the total U.S. beer market, up from 6.5 percent the previous year[/B].
Exactly this. A hilariously small segment of the beer market. They went from one of every 16 beers to one out every 15 beers and they're crowing about it. AB/Inbev in laughing all the way to the bank...And remember, IPA/Pale Ale is only a small percentage of that growth. So they're up LESS than 1.3% in sales by your own numbers, and they're suing each other over it!
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. You started off by dismissing my assertion that there's room to grow in the industry, so craft breweries shouldn't be fighting until it's saturated and they need to find another edge on each other, by saying that the industry is saturated and there's absolutely no growth, then you move on to trying to prove how small of a market share they have and how unsaturated the market is by craft brew. Also, I never mentioned a specific style of craft brew in my original point, so that's irrelevant.
Yes relatively craft brew is currently small, but it's growing, or burgeoning. There's been a big spate of growth in the last decade (and much more so in the last 5 years), a small time frame in the grand scheme, keeping in mind that ABInben/MBC/ has been around since the 1850's, and Coors the 1870s. And the steam is starting to pick up. This proves the point of my original post. If the craft brew is only commanding 7.8%, up from 6.5% the previous year, 1.3% increase (a huge number relative to the entire beer industry), then they still have 92.2% to grow. This will increase exponentially as craft continues to gain interest of former BMC drinkers.
And I don't think AB/Inbev is laughing all the way to the bank. They're still making profits, but those profits are decreasing, hence their answer to craft brew with some of their recent offerings (remember Budweiser American Ale?) and others. I think they're scared as they see their once mighty kingdom starting to crumble from under them.
Remember it's not just craft brew, but the food industry is going through the same thing right now with the growth of higher end gastropubs and the like and the growth of the foodie/food blog industry.
Everything you're saying here is emotionally true for us homebrewers, and proves my point.
Lagunitas IPA cannot grow their market share more than 1.3% per year without lowering some other IPA's growth the same.
And while craft beer is doing "ok" as a category (10% growth with 4.9% inflation is not amazing), "Beer" as a whole is doing poorly, with cheap beer doing the best and formerly expensive beers like imports made in Connecticut and "premium" lagers made om factories all over doing less well.
But the point of this thread is Lagunitas IPA having a tredemark (or copyright) to a big "IPA" logo on there bottles, and suing Sierra Nevada over an alleged knock-off of it.
Silly, really, with any historical look back, even Google.
And on top of that, it suggests that Lagunitas has basically NO historical knowledge, not even as far back as the late '80's early '90's when about 90% of microbreweries went out of business last time through this exact same ride.
Ummmmm..... (what are we 5?)
Dictionary.com
burgeon [bur-juh n]
1. to grow or develop quickly; flourish:
Proves what point? And what's "emotionally?" I gave you hard numbers of growth in the industry in 2013 and disproved your saturation and lack of growth points.
This would assume that there are nobody out there who don't drink IPA's (I don;t get this???), nobody is turning 21, people aren't living longer (They are NOT - at least not in the U.S., check any census you like),
people's expendable cash flows aren't growing (they are NOT, check any financial website, or same census, you like),
and there aren't a whole bunch of people who are not currently drinking craft brew (there are)
and IPAs (a mainly Southern California beer) (it is NOT a mainly SoCal thing, if you think so, ask yourself, "what Emperor?" when you say "Imperial Pale Ale". Is it the emperor of Southern California?),
and won't be introduced to it through friends, homebrew, interest, and successful marketing (they WILL, just not at a GREATER RATE than they already are).
That's a lot of assumptions. They can absolutely increase growth of their share in IPAs while not decreasing another craft breweries own offerings. Craft brew is not a zero sum game.
I agree. So why are they suing other Micro's over the same name (that they clearly didn't invent? And why are they forging attacks on their FaceBook page from former Micro's now turned Macro?
Answer: because THEY believe they are in a "zero sum game" as you say.
Are you kidding me? 10% subset growth and 1.3% GROWTH out of the ENTIRE $100B industry is amazing, especially in an industry that's seeing a net loss as a whole, shared amongst roughly 2200 craft breweries (without looking back at the numbers) is $500,000 in growth PER BREWERY. That's not chump change, any industry would like to have 10% growth. Keep in mind my point was SPECIFIC to the craft brew section of the brewing industry.
I also wouldn't say a $100B industry is "doing poorly" .. there's a 1.6% loss in the industry as whole, which is a bump in the road. You can't on one hand saying a 1% drop is "doing poorly" while the capturing of a 1.3% increase of industry by a growing subset is just meh.
"A capture of 1.3% increase on top of 6.5% is good. Just not "burgeoning". See your own above definition..."
We're not arguing the point of this thread, we're arguing your reply to my thread that there's room to grow and shouldn't be infighting since there's still enough market share to go around as craft consumes BMC. I stand by my original post.
40 years to get to LESS than 8% of the existing market is NOT:
What don't you get? Let me remove the double negative. Not everybody drinks IPAs. Even though you seem to think so, there are MANY people in this country who have never had an IPA before. Therefore that would be potential gains to the IPA portion of the craft brew market, and hence (wait for it) there's still room to grow.This would assume that there are nobody out there who don't drink IPA's (I don;t get this???)
people's expendable cash flows aren't growing (they are NOT, check any financial website, or same census, you like),
and IPAs (a mainly Southern California beer) (it is NOT a mainly SoCal thing, if you think so, ask yourself, "what Emperor?" when you say "Imperial Pale Ale". Is it the emperor of Southern California?),
and won't be introduced to it through friends, homebrew, interest, and successful marketing (they WILL, just not at a GREATER RATE than they already are).
I agree. So why are they suing other Micro's over the same name (that they clearly didn't invent? And why are they forging attacks on their FaceBook page from former Micro's now turned Macro?
Answer: because THEY believe they are in a "zero sum game" as you say.
"A capture of 1.3% increase on top of 6.5% is good. Just not "burgeoning". See your own above definition..."
I believe this is exactly the (missed) point of this thread: micro's are turning on each other at increasing rates because as they grow they are starting to realize they are fighting for the same market share no matter WHERE they are in the country.
It's fun and games to play nice when they sell everything they can make. Then one day they upgrade and get cut throat when they can't max out sales anymore, and it all turns to suing each other and all the tactics emotional homebrewers want to believe are for "A-Hole" Macro's only.
Craft brew sales volume hasn't grown in years. It's an increasingly high percent of a smaller and smaller market as less people drink beer overall.
The DOLLARS per sale have - due to rising prices, and the definition of "craft" to include micro's owned by Macros has added confusion (if you consider Blue Moon a micro, well then, we disagree). That plus new vendors like Whole Foods, Trader Joes, World of Beer, etc selling increasingly large "micro brewer" offerings has led to the look of proliferation in a decreasing market,
My thought on the whole thing was simply MaGee taking steps to protect his trade mark. Yes it appeared to be a slam dunk loss for him however in the long term it serves as proof that he has been protecting his labels.
I can not stand all the FB comments about people looking down on Laguintas and not drinking their product again. They are just clue less with what has happened with DFH and others getting attacked by large brewers.
40 years to get to LESS than 8% of the existing market is NOT:
I believe this is exactly the (missed) point of this thread: micro's are turning on each other at increasing rates because as they grow they are starting to realize they are fighting for the same market share no matter WHERE they are in the country.
It's fun and games to play nice when they sell everything they can make. Then one day they upgrade and get cut throat when they can't max out sales anymore, and it all turns to suing each other and all the tactics emotional homebrewers want to believe are for "A-Hole" Macro's only.
threat today; hippocrate tomorrow.
...is the start of bitter rivals.
Competing IPAs..., bitter rivals..., pun intended?
That is so ridiculous. First the labels don't look anything alike. Second I don't think seirra Nevada wants to be confused with Lagunitas because they make way better beer.
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