Don't Buy the Bullshit Rainier IPA

This is bullshit. Rainier Brewing

There’s going to be a Rainier IPA in the beer aisle later this month. Do not buy it.

I repeat, do not buy the Rainier IPA.

Buying corporate beer itself is shameful enough. It's stabbing your region in the back by intentionally removing capital from your community. But the knife goes deeper with Rainier beer and especially Rainier IPA; We’re not just giving money to the private equity overlords; now we’re buying our culture back from them.

It would be like someone in Vietnam buying pho from McDonald's or someone in Nashville buying their signature hot chicken from KFC. It's fucked up.

Tan Vinh over at the Seattle Times tells us that Pabst Blue Ribbon’s parent company, which owns the Rainier brand, calls their new beer "PCT IPA," and it will be brewed with El Dorado and Azacca hops, two varietals that were born in Washington. This is disrespectful on so many levels.

Pabst Brewing Company is trying to capitalize on the West Coast IPA, a style of beer that Washington is largely responsible for inventing. Many Washington brewers played an integral role in developing the style in the 1970s and 1980s and it owes its distinct flavor to the hops of Washington’s Yakima Valley.

This is, of course, on top of Rainier already selling us the image of our great mountain wrapped around a can of corporate goods. You might be able to gaze at our mountain while you're drinking a Rainier beer, but the private equity owners and the people that make Rainier beer are hundreds of miles away. They never lay their eyes on the Rainier's glaciers while they reach into your pocket and swindle what should be local profits.

A portion of the sales of this bullshit IPA, up to $10,000, according to Vinh, will be donated to the Pacific Crest Trail Association, a move by Rainier’s corporate owners that betrays that they know the gravity of their insult. These corporate millionaires are trying to coax us into driving a knife into our own backs with this charity bait. “SUPPORT THE PCTA!,” the can's label screams.

What a joke.

Georgetown Brewing, a locally owned brewery, has raised over $100,000 for charities off of one beer alone. If this corporate beheamoth actually cared, they would donate far more than 10k, but they do not. They think a $10,000 bribe is enough to buy your support.

Don't take their petty charity bribe. It's painfully easy to buy local beer. Breweries like Georgetown, Fremont, and Bale Breaker make wonderful IPAs that are widely distributed in six packs. If you think you have to buy corporate beer because you only drink light beer, think again. Seattle's Reuben's Brews cans a great, light pilsner, and Seattle even has a brewery dedicated strictly to light beer.

It's never been easier to buy local beer, which is why Rainier is trying to sell us an IPA. Their market share is shrinking and now they are trying to bounce back by selling what our local breweries helped invent. Don't let them hoodwink you into stabbing your neighbors in the back with each additional six pack.