Quote:
Originally Posted by Max H
Has anyone seen the documentary Beer Wars yet. I watched it last night. It was a bit cartoony and was often reminiscent of Roger and Me but it made me appreciate the effort that the smaller brewers go through to bring us our delicious beers.
The barriers to entry for U.S. craft brewers are quite extreme. Even though this segment of the beer market is growing it is still quite small compared to the overall beer market which is actually stagnant. Inbev/Anheuser Busch and Miller/Coors have quite a stranglehold on the distribution system and retailers along with substantial political influence on the state and national levels.
I watched this last week on Netflix, I thought it was really good. Yeah a little on the cartoony/goofy side, but when it got serious it was great and informative. I thought it was very interesting how Inbev/Anheuser Busch and Miller/Coors have a very cut throat attitude, kind of disturbing too. It proved how these companies care more about advertising and share holder well being rather than the quality of their products. I loved the part when they had the taste test for Miller Lite, Coors Lite, and Bud Light and NO ONE got it right.
How lame was that guy who worked for Anheuser Busch and his job to pretty much find out what Micro Breweries were doing and then Anheuser Busch would create their own bastardized version of it.
I thought it was cool how they did a little piece on Yuengling, I live in PA, so it was cool to see that.
Dogfish Head is one of my favorite breweries and after watching this, it just made me like them even more because of how they followed Sam, really cool and really interesting.
I think Jim Koch said it best when talking about Micro vs Macro brews, I dont remember the quote exactly, but it was something like "Do we look at Mcdonalds to give us good burgers? No, so why are people looking at Anheuser Busch for good beer."