Opinion

Big Beer trying to swallow craft beer industry

An employee at Freetail Beer prepares to sanitize fermintation tanks at the company’s South Presa. The craft brewer has received buyout offers but refused. An employee at Freetail Beer prepares to sanitize fermintation tanks at the company’s South Presa. The craft brewer has received buyout offers but refused. Photo: File Photo /San Antonio Express-News Photo: File Photo /San Antonio Express-News Image 1 of / 36 Caption Close Big Beer trying to swallow craft beer industry 1 / 36 Back to Gallery

People often don’t realize the value of independence until it is taken away. We have seen this to be true recently in the world of craft beer.

Craft beer drinkers love the great, diverse, full flavored beers that small breweries like ours began brewing at a time when the large breweries were offering only variations on American Light Lager, and innovation in beer had begun to stagnate.

We were quirky little companies that at first attracted a few intrepid customers curious about what we were doing in leased warehouse spaces in parts of town rarely visited. We were operating in a regulatory structure that seemed created to prevent us from succeeding, especially in Texas.

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These customers stuck with us and began to increase in numbers because they enjoyed the beers we were brewing. But it goes much further. They love the community we create.

Building community is as important to craft brewers as the beers we make.

Craft breweries also bring jobs and tourism to their areas, which benefit the local economy. In fact, small and independent breweries in the Lone Star State contributed more than $4.5 billion to the economy, contributing the equivalent of 26,506 full-time jobs.

Big breweries began to take notice of us in the mid-1990s. Anheuser-Busch had a major public relations campaign in 1996 aimed at undermining craft breweries. It got negative articles written in the Wall Street Journal and a big hit-job special on “Dateline.” It ran ads mocking craft breweries.

It attempted to prevent its distributors from selling our beers by demanding exclusivity with its brands.

As the craft beer industry has grown — it makes up about 12 percent of the total beer market — Big Beer brands have been on the downturn, and over the past several years have switched strategies and begun quietly buying independent craft breweries.

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After all, craft beer is where the money is. In 2016, the overall U.S. beer market had $107.6 billion in sales, with independent craft brewers representing $23.5 billion. Talk about a small-business contribution to our country!

Mind you, these successes are happening amid changing and challenge times.

As such, in the past few years, we’ve seen brands, including Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev), the Belgian brewing conglomerate, quietly purchase 10 formerly independent U.S. craft breweries, including Karbach in Houston.

Other companies, such as MillerCoors, have gotten in on the action — acquiring Revolver in Granbury.

As the Big Beer brands amass a collection of formerly small and independent breweries, they are keeping quiet and not letting consumers know which brands they have acquired.

This lack of transparency is a problem.

We believe that when a large brewery purchases a small brewery, that small brewery ceases to be a small brewery. It suddenly has resources and distribution clout way beyond what true craft breweries have. Its production gets moved to the large breweries’ facilities, and manufacturing costs plummet.

While this is fine and part of the American way, it is counter to the spirit of craft brewing and what matters to the vast majority of our customers.

The selling breweries are monetizing the good will of the craft brewing world exclusively for their benefit.

We’ve received many significant offers but chose to remain independent. Furthermore, large breweries are doing all they can to limit small breweries’ access to market.

In fact, the U.S. Department of Justice made a condition of approving ABInBev’s recent acquisition of SABMiller (a merger of global brewers No. 1 and No. 2 in size) that ABInBev could not execute some of its current strategies forcing our shared distributors to not sell small and independent craft beer brands.

But that is still their end game. Every time you purchase one of these beers from the large breweries, you are inadvertently voting for a future with limited beer options.

For this reason, the Brewers Association, the not-for-profit trade group dedicated to promoting and protecting America’s small and independent craft breweries, developed a seal that independent brewers can use to indicate whether the beer you are buying is truly from a small independent brewery.

This is necessary because the big breweries do everything they can to obfuscate the ownership and brewing location of the brands that they own. The fact that they work so hard to not bring attention to this essentially proves what we already know.

Independence matters.