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Seems like a good and (EDIT: ethically) legitimate plan for the most part #1. Create your own quasi-craft brands. This seems reasonable. If the taste sucks,

Seems like a good and (EDIT: ethically) legitimate plan for the most part #1. Create your own quasi-craft brands. This seems reasonable. If the taste sucks, the brand won't do well. If it doesn't, using a different brand is legitimate. #2. Snatch up craft brews that’ll sell out. Again, a fair strategy. #3. Defend macro brews, bash craft snobs. I'm not for attacking anyone, but certainly people have been attacking drinkers of macro brews for ages. In the circles I move in, Bud drinkers are openly stereotyped as ignorant and racist. #4. Control distribution. #5. Merge and overwhelm the marketplace. Vertical and horizontal integration for the sake of reducing competition is a bad thing, luckily we have laws to prevent this.

JackFr 11y ago
Every one knows Duff drinkers are good upstanding Americans, it's Fudd drinkers who are rednecks and hillbillies.
organsnyder 11y ago
Regarding your last point: in my state (Michigan), the laws surrounding distribution are designed to protect incumbents. Though we have managed to produce quite a few world-class breweries. I'm fortunate to have Founders just a short walk away from my office.
- jghn 11y ago
  Indeed. And this ties to his first point which is that the playing field is far from level so it's not as if those crafty beers are competing on flavor. In many cases that's all one can get, or at least they've set the true craft beers up to fail - e.g. there's a lot of money involved in where on a shelf a particular beer winds up and that affects purchasing. There are many people out there who have heard about the craft beer revolution, don't know any better and will grab the first thing they see. Sure, if they like the product that's AOK. But the effect is that would have been money going to one of the smaller breweries. What do we think will happen once those breweries are extinguished?
  - lambdapie 11y ago
    I agree that controlling the supply chain/shelf space is generally bad (see #4 in my original point, like most economists I'm at best very wary of vertical integration). In spite of my original post, your post has inspired me to buy some true craft beers. Any recommendations? I prefer Lagers, Pilsners and wheat beers. (EDIT: for New York area)
    - ghaff 11y ago
      Most of the best craft brews are fairly local in distribution so it depends on where you live. (I'm more of an IPA and stout drinker anyway so my recommendations on lighter beers aren't going to be all that informed.) I agree that the original piece seems overblown. In my experience, even the "craft brands" of the big brewers cater to pretty mass market tastes and aren't really that interesting.
      - jghn 11y ago
        Completely missed that there were responses, but in case you all see this ghaff is right that distribution is so spotty for most craft breweries that it's better to find some local folks. Along w/ your last sentence I'd also say that most craft brewers' flagships can be pretty plain jane as well for the same reason.
wodenokoto 11y ago
While I'm not a big fan of big-beer and somewhat a fan of micro-brews, I think you are absolutely right. This is not a bad strategy.
eveningcoffee 11y ago
> #1. Create your own quasi-craft brands. I would go as far as call it false advertising. Especially when 10 brands are created that actually contain the same product. Even more, the mere fact that this merger is sought after shows that there is actually need to divide both companies.
- lambdapie 11y ago
  >I would go as far as call it false advertising. Especially when 10 brands are created that actually contain the same product. I disagree that branding the same product differently is false advertising. As long as the product lives up to the claims made in each case, I don't see what is false. I think you are trying to elevate what you think is important (being made by a small company) to a category that is given special treatment when it comes to advertising. It's like the equivalent of mandatory GMO labeling, but with GMO replaced by being made by a big company. For legitimate reasons to have the same product with different brands, consider programming languages. If Haskell had a fancy web 2.0 website, some people might go there and think "this is probably a stable, production ready language with good documentation". Others might think "this language has probably made too many compromises with the corporate world, and won't be a principled and elegant language". If it was possible to market the language in both ways to both people, wouldn't that be reasonable? Namely, to let the corporate users know that it is production ready, and let the purists know that it is not corporate bloatware? >Even more, the mere fact that this merger is sought after shows that there is actually need to divide both companies. I don't understand this point, can you explain it?
  - eveningcoffee 11y ago
    First point. I give you an example. Say company X is known for product Y and they have competitor Z with product W. Lets imagine that there are group of customers of Z who buy product W only because they oppose to the company X. When now company X creates a product A and tries to make impression that product A is from company B and not from company X, then they are making false claims to reduce the market share of company Z by making group of customers of Z to believe that product A is not from company X and is a fair alternative to the product W. Second point. I am just supporting more actual competition on the market.
ginko 11y ago
Wow, you must have drunk a lot of SV kool-aid to be in favor of such business practices.
- tptacek 11y ago
  Well, that was a mean, superficial, and unproductive response to a thoughtful comment. It's also stupid: "those business practices" will do more to help craft brewers than it will to harm them.

JackFr 11y ago

Every one knows Duff drinkers are good upstanding Americans, it's Fudd drinkers who are rednecks and hillbillies.

organsnyder 11y ago

Regarding your last point: in my state (Michigan), the laws surrounding distribution are designed to protect incumbents. Though we have managed to produce quite a few world-class breweries. I'm fortunate to have Founders just a short walk away from my office.

jghn 11y ago
Indeed. And this ties to his first point which is that the playing field is far from level so it's not as if those crafty beers are competing on flavor. In many cases that's all one can get, or at least they've set the true craft beers up to fail - e.g. there's a lot of money involved in where on a shelf a particular beer winds up and that affects purchasing. There are many people out there who have heard about the craft beer revolution, don't know any better and will grab the first thing they see. Sure, if they like the product that's AOK. But the effect is that would have been money going to one of the smaller breweries. What do we think will happen once those breweries are extinguished?
- lambdapie 11y ago
  I agree that controlling the supply chain/shelf space is generally bad (see #4 in my original point, like most economists I'm at best very wary of vertical integration). In spite of my original post, your post has inspired me to buy some true craft beers. Any recommendations? I prefer Lagers, Pilsners and wheat beers. (EDIT: for New York area)
  - ghaff 11y ago
    Most of the best craft brews are fairly local in distribution so it depends on where you live. (I'm more of an IPA and stout drinker anyway so my recommendations on lighter beers aren't going to be all that informed.) I agree that the original piece seems overblown. In my experience, even the "craft brands" of the big brewers cater to pretty mass market tastes and aren't really that interesting.
    - jghn 11y ago
      Completely missed that there were responses, but in case you all see this ghaff is right that distribution is so spotty for most craft breweries that it's better to find some local folks. Along w/ your last sentence I'd also say that most craft brewers' flagships can be pretty plain jane as well for the same reason.

wodenokoto 11y ago

While I'm not a big fan of big-beer and somewhat a fan of micro-brews, I think you are absolutely right. This is not a bad strategy.

eveningcoffee 11y ago

> #1. Create your own quasi-craft brands. I would go as far as call it false advertising. Especially when 10 brands are created that actually contain the same product. Even more, the mere fact that this merger is sought after shows that there is actually need to divide both companies.

lambdapie 11y ago
>I would go as far as call it false advertising. Especially when 10 brands are created that actually contain the same product. I disagree that branding the same product differently is false advertising. As long as the product lives up to the claims made in each case, I don't see what is false. I think you are trying to elevate what you think is important (being made by a small company) to a category that is given special treatment when it comes to advertising. It's like the equivalent of mandatory GMO labeling, but with GMO replaced by being made by a big company. For legitimate reasons to have the same product with different brands, consider programming languages. If Haskell had a fancy web 2.0 website, some people might go there and think "this is probably a stable, production ready language with good documentation". Others might think "this language has probably made too many compromises with the corporate world, and won't be a principled and elegant language". If it was possible to market the language in both ways to both people, wouldn't that be reasonable? Namely, to let the corporate users know that it is production ready, and let the purists know that it is not corporate bloatware? >Even more, the mere fact that this merger is sought after shows that there is actually need to divide both companies. I don't understand this point, can you explain it?
- eveningcoffee 11y ago
  First point. I give you an example. Say company X is known for product Y and they have competitor Z with product W. Lets imagine that there are group of customers of Z who buy product W only because they oppose to the company X. When now company X creates a product A and tries to make impression that product A is from company B and not from company X, then they are making false claims to reduce the market share of company Z by making group of customers of Z to believe that product A is not from company X and is a fair alternative to the product W. Second point. I am just supporting more actual competition on the market.

ginko 11y ago

Wow, you must have drunk a lot of SV kool-aid to be in favor of such business practices.

tptacek 11y ago
Well, that was a mean, superficial, and unproductive response to a thoughtful comment. It's also stupid: "those business practices" will do more to help craft brewers than it will to harm them.