Is beer by megabrewers automatically bad?
As you are no doubt aware, large brewers often have multiple brands. Some may be marketed as “premium” compared its more famous brand (e.g., Michelob vs. Budweiser), some are marketed as more economical (e.g., Busch vs. Budweiser) and some to appeal to one or other demographic category that traditionally eschews beer (e.g., Michelob Ultra, Mike’s Hard Lemonade*). In many cases, the big brewer tries to hide that it’s actually the brewer, using different company names that coincidentally have the same address of the parent brewer.
A couple of news items in the beer industry in the last couple of weeks (Rolling Rock acquired by Anheuser Busch and Latrobe brewery shut down, Sapporo buys Sleeman’s) plus a review I wrote about Blue Moon Belgian White got me thinking about this. Do so-called beer connoisseurs automatically turn their noses up at a beer just because it was made by Anheuser Busch, SABMiller, Molson Coors, et.al.? Because I knew it was made by Coors, was my review of Blue Moon totally fair?
The answer to the first question is, in many cases, yes. Take a look around the beerblogosphere and you’ll see plenty of bashing of anything touched by the “taint” of a megabrewer. Even here, where we try to maintain an open mind and enjoy beer for what it is, not necessarily for who made it, we’ve been known to look askance at some brews no matter what.
Really, though, is that right? Isn’t that the same sort of bourgeois attitude we beer-drinkers have endured for decades from obnoxious oenophiles? Okay, yes, if a company is involved with “blood diamonds”, or sweatshops, or polluting, or accounting fraud, or exploitation, or predatory pricing, or any of a hundred other bad behaviors, then go ahead and not buy their products. But how often is a brewer caught up in stuff like that? If the beer is good (to you) and you like it, who cares who the brewer is?
In answer to my second question: I don’t know. As I said I try to keep an open mind. I am a big NFL fan, so I get “treated” to advertising from the very biggest brewers. I think some play fast and loose with laws regarding marketing to young people, and for the most part they are insulting to my intelligence. But I don’t buy their beer simply because I’ve had it and I don’t like it (any more), not because I am rebelling or because of snobbishness. I believe that I am beyond the simplistic “this (craft brew) is good beer and that (megabrew) is not” way of thinking. I do not like the bland, adjunct-filled offerings of the big brewers, but that’s not to say I don’t enjoy the occasional Killian’s Irish Red, for instance.
So I say to you: If you drink beer for the taste, if you enjoy trying new beers and styles, if you like finding new and better ways to enjoy your beer, then to heck with where it came from or what other people say about it. You’re our kind of people.
* While it is ultra-filtered, purified, and has all kinds of syrupy flavors added, it is a “malt beverage” and begins life as malted barley. It, and others of its ilk, is technically and legally beer.
