Ballast Point made the news this week as the latest craft brewery to sell off all or part of their company to a major international beer distributor. The $1 billion purchase by Constellation, purveyor of popular Mexican-themed waters like Corona and Modelo, is just another in a year of similar moves, including the sale of Golden Road Brewing in September and the surprising sale of 50% of Lagunitas’ stake to (ugh) Heineken a few weeks prior, to name a few.
People in the craft beer community are upset or confused over these moves for a multitude of reasons, some of them valid. How would you feel if your neighborhood burger shop down the block sold to McDonald’s? Some are understanding of the sales. How would you feel if the owners of your neighborhood burger shop were suddenly $1 billion richer? My colleague Mathew Muncy said earlier this week, “Not everyone’s philosophy is to take on the giants of their industry and trying to put an onus on Ballast Point to stick with their roots is as silly as saying you’d turn down a $1 billion offer.”
The owners of Ballast Point, Lagunitas, Elysian, and so many others aren’t here to fight the giants of international conglomerates on behalf of us, the consumer. A craft brewery’s mission will always be at its core to make exceptional beer for people that want to drink it. And sometimes your beer is so good that a company offers you $1 billion to put that beer in the mouths of more people than you ever thought possible. I’M SORRY I THOUGHT THIS WAS AMERICA?!?!?!
Instead, we have a lot of images and buzzwords in our minds like, “fresh,” “local,” “made the right way,” etc. We know what brewery isn’t a craft brewery, but that doesn’t get us much closer to what defines a craft brewery.
I believe there definitely is a certain “spirit” to craft beer, and that we can’t always describe what it is, but we know it when we see it. The spirit a) definitely exists, but b) is entirely subjective (“It’s in the eye of the beer-holder,” my pal Conor says). It goes back to what Mathew said: not every brewery’s mission lines up with our expectations, and Ballast Point (and every other brewery) was 100% within their right to get bigger piece of that pie.
We all have our reasons for being upset when these sales happen, and truth be told none of them really matter. For every all our qualms we have with the owners of Ballast Point over their move this week, they have one billion reasons why it was the right one for them. Moves like this will continue to happen, and craft brewers will be able to continue to spread their beer around the country and world, spirit be damned.
