
Beer giant ABI bought many craft brews and is now buying beer rating websites - coloneltcb
http://www.foodandpower.net/2017/11/02/abis-venture-capital-fund-quietly-expanding-the-mega-brewers-reach/#bookmark/0/
======
arkadiyt
This article about Casper purchasing mattress review sites was making the
rounds recently as well. Great read:

[https://www.fastcompany.com/3065928/sleepopolis-casper-
blogg...](https://www.fastcompany.com/3065928/sleepopolis-casper-bloggers-
lawsuits-underside-of-the-mattress-wars)

~~~
Aloha
I love my Casper Mattress, I think longingly of it when I'm on the road for
work... but this gives me pause.. just a little.

~~~
Johnny555
People also love their Leesa mattresses and their Tuft & Needle mattresses and
their Purple mattresses and their Ghostbed mattresses, and so on.

Online memory foam mattresses have become a bit of a commodity and the biggest
distinguishing factor between them appears to be the marketing (and legal)
budget.

~~~
on_and_off
As somebody having moved to the US a month ago : some of your industries like
mattress sound a lot like gigantic scams.

I did not want to pay 2k$ for a good mattress because it is just a stupid
rectangle of foam. Each time I read about how they have nasa engineers in
their teams to help them innovate on 'mattress technology' I choke up a
little. How can somebody write that with a straight face ?

I ended up buying one on amazon (a Zinus if anybody is interested, heard about
it in another HN thread)

~~~
rconti
As a natural born American, some of our industries confuse the hell out of me.
Why are used car dealerships so scummy? Why are there (overpriced) mattress
stores on every corner? Why do we sell prescription drugs on TV?

Mattresses truly are a weird one though. You can see how overpriced they are
by the mere existence of these massive stores with allegedly-valuable
inventory, that are always empty, because people don't need new mattresses
that often!

Of course, they're ridiculously overpriced so you can get great "deals" on
them as they're always running tax-free sales, etc.

Thankfully when my wife and I went to try out mattresses for our fancy new big
wood bedframe, in the process of trying everything from $600 up to $3000+
(california king size pricing), she declared the cheapest one her favorite,
and that was that!

~~~
ggg9990
Used car dealerships are scummy because 1) the quality of the product is much
better known to the seller than to the buyer, and 2) people make few enough
purchases that repeat clientele is not that valuable.

------
tptacek
Consolidation in the beer market bothers me less than it does my beer nerd
friends. Many of the best-known, most-loved independent breweries run into
major quality problems trying to scale up their output. ABI probably has
advantages in regulating quality. Breweries that don't want to scale are
unlikely to sell in the first place.

The whiskey market is almost entirely consolidated; you have to go out of your
way to find quality products that aren't traceable to large concerns, despite
a proliferation of brands. But we're in a 2-decade renaissance in whiskey
quality (despite the No Age Statement movement!) and availability. The median
big-brand whiskey is overwhelmingly more likely to be good than the median
independent whiskey.

The barriers to entry for beer are far, far lower than for whiskey. We're not
going to run out of microbreweries, or of interesting new beers. Why are beer
nerds so freaked out about this?

(I have nothing useful to say about beer rating sites, which I think are
pretty sketchy to begin with.)

~~~
mustacheemperor
The problem with beer consolidation is what "regulating quality" at scale
entails. Consistent quality in gigantic batches often translates to lower
quality beer than pre-acquisition. Maybe it's just not possible to scale every
recipe to nationwide distribution, but if that's the case it still means a
small brewery's acquisition and subsequent scaling to national levels
generally means the taste you were used to is gone for good.

Case in point, Magic Hat. The beers are entirely different since acquisition
by NAB, and terrible. There are nationally available independent breweries
that make quality beer - Oskar Blues comes to mind. They scaled without
selling, and I have no doubt NAB or ABI would have absolutely destroyed the
recipes in their own scaling process.

~~~
bjacokes
Another acquisition model is what Goose Island did when they sold to ABI. As I
understand it, they outsourced production of their less differentiated
offerings like Honkers Ale and 312, but continue to run their brewpub and make
their Bourbon County Stout and Belgian beers like Matilda and Sofie. You see
this in some other industries, where a company will spin off or sell
businesses that aren't its "secret sauce".

~~~
kevinmchugh
The brewpub was not part of the sale - ABI couldn't legally own a brewpub.

There remains a mostly-independent, somewhat expanded brewing operation in
Chicago. They've experienced quite a bit of turnover since the buyout, with
many of the experienced brewers going on to start their own breweries.

~~~
ml10
The brewpub was not part of the original sale, but the owner sold it to ABI in
Feb of 2016: [http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/oak-park/news/ct-
goose...](http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/oak-park/news/ct-goose-island-
sells-original-brewpub-to-anheuserbusch-20160219-story.html)

------
gervase
Given the remarkably shady business practices of the entrenched players (past
and present), I don't consider this relentless consolidation to be desirable.
Additionally, in other markets where such consolidation has happened, it has
historically not been beneficial for consumers (internet access, cell
providers, etc).

I primarily interact with this market via the grocery store, not the bar tap,
but I find this app [0] to be useful in that context. It makes it relatively
painless to leverage my (minuscule) purchasing power to support small
businesses, and reject these kinds of intentionally-obscured corporate
maneuvers.

[0]: [http://www.craftcheckapp.com/](http://www.craftcheckapp.com/)

~~~
splatcollision
If you don't want the barcode scanning feature, and just want to type in a
name and see who owns it, why can't this be a plain old website? Or to say it
another way, is there a web-based interface that does the same thing?

~~~
njarboe
Wikipedia seems to work well for this. For the few breweries I looked up
Wikipedia it has a box at the top with a summary of info which includes
"Owner" or "Parent" or "Manufacturer".

For Lagunitas you get:Heineken International For Blue Moon you get:MillerCoors
For Anchor Steam you get:Sapporo Holdings

------
ben1040
The Brewers Association recently put out a new label insignia that independent
craft breweries could use, to signify they're actually an independent
operation.

I can see why they do it; my grocery store recently saw a huge influx of new
craft brands in the refrigerated section and it turned out that _all_ of them
were A-B products.

A-B had a bunch of the former owners/brewmasters release a series of video
interviews to dump on the idea.

[https://vimeo.com/223773287](https://vimeo.com/223773287)

The video ends with the founder of Elysian saying to be truly independent and
"punk" would be to do your own thing and not use the BA's logo. It's sort of
funny in the face of Elysian scrubbing their website of mentions of their
"Loser Pale Ale," a collab with Sub Pop Records.

The label proudly declared, "corporate beer still sucks."

~~~
eggpy
"We're all independent together!"

Also, what's A-B?

~~~
scrumbledober
Anheuser Busch. They were bought by Inbev a few years back to form ABI.

~~~
eggpy
Ah yeah, of course. Thanks.

------
kodt
I don't really understand their interest in RateBeer, RateBeer really does not
seem that relevant today. 10 years ago it was very important in the craft beer
scene. Now it seems like a dying community.

In terms of reviewing beers, most people have moved to using an app like
Untappd. BeerAdvocate, another forum/beer rating site seems to have a more
active userbase, but even that is becoming less relevant today as people move
away from forum communities.

Is that data on RateBeer of use to them? Are they planning on pouring money
into it to position it as a competitor to Untappd? I'm not sure what the goal
is. If the fear is they will secretly skew review scores to favor their
product lines, that seems hardly worth the effort, as I don't think enough
people use the site to drive purchasing decisions to make a meaningful impact.

I think people need to be aware of which beer publications ZX Ventures owns,
or owns a stake in, as that will help you identify marketing fluff pieces vs
real reporting. The fact that they go to some effort to hide their ownership
of several brands they have acquired is concerning to me, but I also
understand it is not in their interest to promote that fact. Many people
unknowingly buy ABI products without having any idea the beer they are buying
isn't in fact locally owned.

~~~
byproxy
I don't even care about other people's beer ratings. I just use
RateBeer/BeerAdvocate to lookup ABV and caloric information.

~~~
mywittyname
Same. As a whole, the American craft beer drinkers are obsessed with really
hoppy beers, which I hate. So the ratings are completely useless, because a
beer I hate will be like a 4.5 while a beer I love will be a 3.3.

There's definitely an opportunity here for a better beer rating system. Get
some equipment to analyze the chemical compounds of beers, automatically
classify them and use it to recommend beers based on your personal flavor
preferences.

~~~
matwood
> As a whole, the American craft beer drinkers are obsessed with really hoppy
> beers, which I hate.

In standard American fashion, we are bad at subtlety. You want hops, we will
make beer that tastes like you're chewing on raw hops. You want alcohol, the
beer will taste like whiskey. While there are some exceptions (like Dogfish
Head 90 minute IPA), this is the standard formula for American craft beers.

The Belgians on the other hand can really 'craft' beer.

~~~
mywittyname
> The Belgians on the other hand can really 'craft' beer.

Yeah they can. I think the last 3-4 six packs I've purchased were Belgian
imports. They tend to have distinct flowery notes that I really enjoy.

------
jakub_g
I got this on my Twitter feed yesterday:

[https://www.takecraftback.com](https://www.takecraftback.com)

"Help us raise $213 billion we need to buy AB InBev"

Biggest crowdfounding ever :)

------
arca_vorago
Is it crazy my first thought is I wonder if I could make a beer website real
fast and try and sell it to em. Prob would have to sockpuppet the traffic but
nooo nobody in SV does that its immoral!/s

~~~
jbigelow76
Maybe the Russians could help you out.

------
thinkling
FWIW, the Ratebeer.com FAQ says:

> Q. ZX Ventures, which is wholly owned by AB InBev, is an investor in
> RateBeer. What are you doing to ensure ratings remain fair and independent?

> Answer

> RateBeer is an independent and unbiased community managed by Joseph Tucker.
> We understand your concern and have developed quality protections to
> maintain our position as the most authoritative reference in beer. Among
> these are:

> 1) RateBeer's reviews are crowd-sourced and not editorial content and as
> such are beyond simple influence by the site's managers and employees

> 2) RateBeer offer a transparency measure in the form of an API through which
> other brewers, industry watchers and journalists can easily view and vet
> changes in scores

> 3) RateBeer has existing policies against affiliated users adding reviews of
> their own or competitor products

> 4) RateBeer is developing a system by which any user can indicate
> association with the industry as a means to void all of their reviews for
> score calculation, and public viewing, but be able to store them for
> personal use

~~~
fizx
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends
upon his not understanding it!

\- Upton Sinclair

------
elliotec
I'm getting a 500 "Error establishing a database connection"

~~~
firloop
Guess ABI got the site too...

~~~
danschumann
Aw man, I was going to say that.

------
jimrandomh
A reviewer that represents themself as impartial, but is partially owned by a
company whose products it's reviewing, is committing fraud. The only way to
make it not-fraud is to put up disclaimers large enough that people will treat
it like an advertising brochure.

------
TaylorGood
Typically avoid beer purchased/ran by the big guys although beautiful
businesses. How great to be in the reorder business at-scale.

My knowledge comes from winemaking, but generally, the larger the volume the
less ingredients matter. Obviously still palatable, but in comparison, those
details really matter when you're a rising operation. A brand and/or breweries
reputation is on the line if they are off with their production process. At
scale, they can be off or less perfect but will add extra ingredients to curb
the errors.

~~~
colechristensen
The pattern is to buy a brand that has developed an image and gradually lower
quality bleeding everything from the reputation until it's meaningless. It's
slash and burn economics.

------
baq
vertical integration!

------
crispytx
While I don't drink anymore, the truth is that the lagers all taste the same
and you should just buy whatever's the cheapest.

------
jorgec
Thanks heaven, i misread "Bear giant".

------
659087
The craft beer market has been dead to me for a long time.

That's not to say that there aren't still a number of very good beers and
breweries out there that I enjoy, but to say that the market is saturated.
It's clear that many newer breweries spend more time on their label designs
than they do on their beers, and trying to find the good ones has become
tiring.. so I stick to what I know these days.

------
nickbauman
In Minneapolis there are too many microbreweries. I say this because more than
half of them produce _tooth looseningly bad_ beer. Or the beer actually makes
me feel ill after I drink it. I've all but stopped drinking beer completely.

Having said that, the bigger microbreweries now resemble AIB so closely
they're not really microbreweries anymore. They have become what they were
reacting to.

------
mar77i
I just hope they do have a beer review process that ensures their craft beers
are ABI compatible...

------
m0llusk
Next they should consider expanding into the market for urinals.

------
PatientTrades
If the beer taste great and is inexpensive I don't see how anybody can have a
problem with that.

~~~
barake
The big alcohol companies force distbutors to carry certain products, or even
not carry comepetitors products.

An example: you want to keep selling a macro like Bud or scopes that makes up
40% of your revenue ? Drop that local brewery, we have a “craft” IPA to sub
out.

They get the revenue the same, you get the illusion of choice, and the new
company gets to pound sand.

~~~
yock
Many states have laws forcing producers of alcoholic beverages to use
distributors in the first place. It's state law that creates the bottleneck
which allows the big players to monopolize the market in the first place.

~~~
barake
This would be a problem even with direct distribution. Just replace
distributor with retailer.

Here in Kentucky, AB Inbev owned a distributor and was quietly playing these
games. After some shenanigans, KY adjusted the three tier rules to prevent
breweries owning distributors, even if they’re from out of state.

FWIW the three tier system is dumb and should go away. But removing it doesn’t
automatically level the playing field.

~~~
rockostrich
> This would be a problem even with direct distribution. Just replace
> distributor with retailer.

This is false. Breweries that make great beer have no problem selling out of
their beer when they only sell packaged beer at the brewery. Examples include
Tree House, Trillium, Hill Farmstead, Other Half, LIC Beer Project, Interboro,
Night Shift (who actually own a distribution company now, but they sell out of
new releases at the brewery within a day or 2), Monkish, Cellarmaker, the
Veil, and many more in pretty much any major city that you can think of. Hell,
Boston and New York have a half dozen each and new breweries are still popping
up that are selling out of beer without distributing.

I agree that the 3 tier system is stupid, but breweries have proven over the
past decade that they can scale up to 10k+ barrels per year without
distributing a single thing.

~~~
barake
Sorry I wasn’t clear, only talking about retail distribution, not direct
package sales.

No question plenty of breweries have found a way to be successful outside of
normal retail. But they should be able to distribute, without large
multinationals strong arming retailers in to not carrying competitors
products.

Absolutely agree that many breweries have been successful not distributing

~~~
rockostrich
No worries, I wasn't sure if that's what you might have meant. Night Shift
near Boston actually started their own distribution company which has helped a
ton of local breweries get their beer out of saturated areas and into new
markets where they might do better. Right now it's mostly them distributing
New England beer to Chicago and a few other areas in the NE and then picking
up beer from Pipeworks in Chicago and bringing it back to distribute up here.

------
sushisource
I have a hard time getting worked up over these acquisitions. If the beer is
still good, who cares? If you're really upset about it, there are still
literally thousands of other craft breweries to choose from.

~~~
hylianwarrior
Nice sentiment, but it's a bit unnerving to see an industry consolidating like
this while ALSO buying out sites that review the beer. Having few large,
central corporations control both the market and the medium by which the
products are reviewed is not a good thing.

~~~
jxramos
I guess the tricky thing would be measuring what they do the site. If they
take it down or delete negative reviews, etc, that would be some questionable
behavior. If they use it to gain honest feedback and funnel it into
development channels of some kind that could prove interesting. Overall seems
like a conflict of interest.

I wonder how much appetite they'd have to buy up the next review site that
pops up and catches on. Sort of like review site whak-a-mole. It would be very
disconcerting to say the least if a company went out and bought up all new and
fledgling review sites of interest to them.

~~~
cma
A public review site is public. You don't need to buy it to gain honest
feedback.

~~~
jxramos
that's true, but I'm thinking they'd bake in some in-house custom API for
organizing it all and rendering it into some sort of data analytics repo. I
guess this could be accomplished too via the public interface and just work
around things indirectly.

