Your Craft Beer May Not Actually Be Craft At All

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It’s no secret that a rivalry continues to brew within the beer industry. Big beer brands are snatching up craft breweries left and right. Fortune suggests that as more customers turn to craft breweries, more global beer brands will attempt to buy out the smaller ones. While the craft beer industry inevitably continues to rise, its growth and popularity are drawing attention from the big beer brands who see them as a threat. Their solution? Swallow them up.

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Why should you care? One of the coolest parts about supporting the craft beer industry is knowing that you’re supporting an independent brewery. It’s even better when they’re making the beer right in your town or city. There’s something comforting about knowing where your beer comes from.  The last thing you want to hear when you’ve become obsessed with a new IPA is that the brewery is owned by one of the country’s biggest beer brands. People tend to love craft breweries because there’s a sense of pride and transparency that you won’t find with the large-scale, publicly traded, corporate kinds.

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There’s a growing concern in the industry that big brewers like Anheuser-Busch InBev, MillerCoors, Crown Imports, Heineken and Pabst are starting to monopolize craft brewing. Beers like Shock Top and Goose Island may seem like a level up, but in reality, they’re controlled by Anheuser-Busch, the same company that’s making Budweiser.

For reference, here are a couple of large-scale breweries that have taken over craft beer brands: 

Constellation Brands (maker of Corona, Modelo and Pacifico): Ballast Point Brewing

Heineken (maker of Tecate, Red Stripe and Amstel): Lagunitas Brewing

Anheuser-Busch InBev (maker of Bud Light, Budweiser and Stella Artois): Goose Island Beer, Elysian Brewing, Shock Top, 10 Barrel Brewing, Blue Point Brewing and Breckenridge Brewery.

MillerCoors (maker of Coors Light, Miller Lite and Keystone Light): Blue Moon Brewing, Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing, Saint Archer Brewing and Terrapin Beer.

When you want to distinguish the actual craft beers from multinational beverage conglomerates, there’s an app that can help you out. Craft Check lets you scan the barcode or search by brewery name so you can immediately find out whether the beer you’re looking at is as authentic as it seems.

The Brewer’s Association — a trade group that advocates for small and independent brewers — has come up with an official new seal to distinguish themselves from the commercialized brands. The certified seal looks like a beer bottle flipped upside down. The goal of this branding is to educate beer lovers about what they’re actually drinking.

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In order to meet the craft brewer criteria, a brewery must be three things: Small, independent and traditional. It must have an annual production of six million barrels of beer or less, not be more than 25 percent owned or controlled by a non-craft brewer and the beer has to be made from innovative or traditional ingredients.

Bottom Line: The main concern, from the beer aficionado standpoint, is that big beer brands like Anheuser-Busch will prioritize profit over quality. For brewery owners, a buyout doesn’t seem like a bad deal at all when the brewing process and staff stay the same.

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It’s really a matter of who will stick around when the boss changes and how much integrity can remain when money-hungry corporations are breathing down their necks. Business Insider quotes BrewDog (a Scottish craft brewer) on this beer industry rivalry. BrewDog said, “If you have to spend millions of pounds (dollars) on ad campaigns to get people to drink your beer, the brewing is probably being neglected.”