Goose Island on Black Friday? Hmm, that sounds like enough cultural depravity for one corporate holiday.

Nothing personal, Todd, but no. I'll pass.

However, let's credit AB-InBev for its monolith's conceptual grasp: Black Friday and Bourbon County Stout unite Big Beer Brother symbolism in a way previously reserved for the likes of Leni Riefenstahl and the Nuremberg Rallies.

Of course, Black Friday is a mindless celebration of consumerism, contextualized through the plasticized glories of Chainland and the sultry allures of Big Box World. There's nothing remotely "craft" about Black Friday in the mass marketing sense, and accordingly, the late Goose Island is macro as macro can be, reduced forever to inert zombie bondage -- merely a Craft-Shaped Hologram, with any money spent on purchasing its products headed straight to chardonnay-sipping AB-InBev shareholders the world over.

Narcissistic beer hoarders are free to deny this reality until the end of time, and they generally do, but Goose Island remains a wholly-owned subsidiary of the beer world’s largest extortionate conglomerate, and as such, it contradicts virtually every tenet of the "craft" beer indie handbook. Black Friday and Trojan Goose? It's a marriage made in Leuven, and officiated by the Koch Brothers.

AB-Inbev uses its "craft" toy not unlike a drone, aggressively combating the interests of better beer in those venues where money buys shelf space in supermarkets, or taps via the concessionaire’s usual extortion in closed settings like airports and stadiums.

Denial? It's isn't just a river in Egypt any more.

Intellectual honesty as it pertains to Goose Island's entirely necessary multinational hash tag.

What's that intellectual honesty egghead horseshit, Rog -- I mean, all we care about is the liquid in the glass, and we don't give a fuck who finances it.

Thank you, narcissists. Meanwhile, back in the real world, in determining whether it's Goose Island or Trojan Goose, geography is only somewhat useful.

More relevant is the eternal admonition to follow the money.

Failure to do so conjures questions of intellectual honesty, as in this plank: 'Relevant facts and information are not purposefully omitted even when such things may contradict one's hypothesis."

Intellectual honesty is an applied method of problem solving in academia, characterized by an unbiased, honest attitude, which can be demonstrated in a number of different ways, including but not limited to:

• One's personal beliefs do not interfere with the pursuit of truth;
• Relevant facts and information are not purposefully omitted even when such things may contradict one's hypothesis;
• Facts are presented in an unbiased manner, and not twisted to give misleading impressions or to support one view over another;
• References, or earlier work, are acknowledged where possible, and plagiarism is avoided.
• Harvard ethicist Louis M. Guenin describes the "kernel" of intellectual honesty to be "a virtuous disposition to eschew deception when given an incentive for deception."

Intentionally committed fallacies in debates and reasoning are sometimes called intellectual dishonesty.

For an explanation of the local multiplier effect, elements of which surely apply to this digression, visit a place where principled folks make interesting points: The Multiplier Effect of Local Independent Business Ownership.

Hint: It isn't located at Rate Advocate's web site.

Diary: I'd rather see their asses starve than let them have Trojan Goose money.

Two fat cat AB InBev shareholders are at the teller's window cashing their dividend checks, and one says to the other: "You know what's funny?"

The other says, "No, what?"

The first one says: "All the beer snobs used to call us crap, and now they say we're craft, and all we did was buy one of their breweries."

As I wrote last year, and seeing as nothing has changed in what increasingly appear to me as diametrically opposed "craft" camps of localism and narcissism:

You’re free to deny reality until the end of time, but Goose Island is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the beer world’s largest extortionate conglomerate, and it contradicts virtually every tenet of my daily business existence.

Of course, if one is not engaged in owning an independent business and seeing what economic localism means on the ground, in this place and time ... well, you know.

A note on Brew at the Zoo, 2013.

With appropriately misplaced fanfare, the organizers of Brew at the Zoo (Louisville edition) have revealed on Facebook that "We're excited to welcome Goose Island Beer Co. as a sponsor of Brew 2013!"

Sigh.

That's too bad, because I'm not excited at all.

This unfortunate move contradicts what the festival has always been about, which is the value of localism in beer, and as a consequence, NABC will not be able to actively participate this year. I fully understand that AB-InBev's predictable shell game puppeteer routine v.v. Goose's sponsorship money does not constitute overall title sponsorship of the zoo event (although it may be only a matter of time). It's just that certain principles genuinely matter, and to myself and NABC, this is one of them.

I'm not angry, just saddened. Note that we'll happily return to Brew at the Zoo when thematic unity is restored.

Other local brewers are free to examine their consciences with respect to whether they should participate under AB-InBev's chosen conditions (foreign ownership, foreign sponsorship, payola, anti-localism), which cruelly negate the ethos and rationale of their own small breweries -- but this is no litmus test. Do as you please. As of this moment, I'm finished with the topic ... in 2013. perhaps the dark clouds will abate in 2014, and we can gather together at the Parrot Dice Casino once again.

Lest readers draw the wrong conclusions, my personal and brewery support for Brew at the Zoo goes back to the very start. In 2004, at the very first one, NABC drove all the way back to New Albany and back to fetch two kegs of beer and keep the drinkers at the Zoo watered when all the other beer was gone. Search the pages of this blog, and find yearly reminders from me to attend the event and be part of the fun.

The zoo event has evolved quite positively over the years, but AB-InBev's cash clearly signals regression. I hope it isn't indicative of a permanent shift. Only time will tell.

Localism + Beer (Nov. 15, 2012 at LouisvilleBeer.com)

Eyes and Palates, Wide Open

Not so long ago, Goose Island Brewing Company was a proud independent, but now it is 100% owned by the multinational monolith called AB-Inbev, meaning that in cold, hard fact, Goose Island is no more independent than an Ignatius J. Reilly-themed weenie wagon on the streets of Pyongyang, North Korea. Honkers Ale remains certifiably better than Budweiser, but to me, it really matters where the money goes … and dollars paid for Honkers ultimately travel to corporate headquarters in Leuven, Belgium, not Chicago, Illinois.

Sorry, but Goose Island sold out. Craft beer drinkers need to examine their consciences lest they sell out, too.

Goose Island, Zombie Craft Beer and other Tales of the Unexpectorated.

It starts here.

My column at Food and Dining: "Localism + Beer."

Then it goes here.

Brewers: Can you "justify calling beer local"? Are you being hypocritical when you do so?

Here's another comment posted to the original piece.

HB said...
Buying local just for the sake of it makes no sense if the quality isn't there. And now that the number of new small breweries is growing, it is inevitable that there will be plenty of 'weeds in the crop'. The concept of 'local' beer is nice, but only if the 'local' beer is good. The problem is that often it is not very good at all; and sometimes it is even shockingly overpriced to boot for what you're getting.

So I don't care how big Goose Island (or any brewery) gets or who owns it...if they (or any brewery) continue to make a good beer, it stays on my list. Growing numbers of 'good beer' lovers are beginning to feel the same way.

Following is my reply, which I've refashioned a bit in light of subsequent events.To begin, a quote from my piece:

"If my shift to locally brewed beer implied being compelled to drink an inferior product, obviously I would think differently."

That's fairly clear, isn't it? We do not disagree, and no one is asking you to drink local beer that tastes like ass. You appear to be taking issue with the next sentence I wrote:

"Fortunately, it does not."

So, we do not disagree that quality is paramount. Local beer quality seldom is an issue where I live (metro Louisville), and in fact, I'm hard-pressed to recall the last time I experienced an undrinkable beer hereabouts. But I have no idea where you live, and perhaps it's a different situation there.

Moreover, your opening swipe implying an ideological compulsion to buy local "for the sake of it" plainly is gratuitous. It also is unmerited by my Food and Dining argument, which explains (in admittedly cursory fashion; that annoying word count thing) the economic aspects of localism that might matter to craft drinkers, too. Of course, these aspects extend beyond craft beer. They do not exempt them. Both principles and palates have their places.

I understand the panicked, ongoing rush to defend Goose Island, which in fact is dead. Yesterday, it became even more dead, if that's possible: Goose Island CEO, John Hall, stepping down, A-B InBev exec taking over. Hall now "will be part of a newly-formed 'craft advisory board' at A-B InBev," meaning that he'll be the rough equivalent of an affirmative action appointment to an entity which is the GREATEST ENEMY OF CRAFT BEER IN THE HISTORY OF THIS PLANET.

Now more than ever, Goose Island no longer exists in any relevant fashion compared to what brought craft beer to where it is today, or to what craft beer stands for. I lament the loss, because Goose Island was the first American brewpub I ever visited back in 1992,  but nowadays there's good beer everywhere, and it isn't necessary for us to directly subsidize A-B InBev to produce a GOOSE ISLAND ZOMBIE CRAFT BEER UNIT that means absolutely nothing to A-B InBev save for its unquestioned utility as a tactical chess piece to keep genuine craft beers off store shelves and draft lines.

Finally, I think your conclusion is utterly mistaken. Growing numbers of beer lovers are coming to our segment with a keen local orientation, looking to learn exactly how what we do (and who we are) jibes with their expanded consciousness in other areas of human experience. They're interested in community connections, because it seems to them that craft beer is a neighborhood not unlike the places they're examining closely before living there. They're connecting dots, collecting information, and then deciding for themselves. I intend to help them do so, whether they drink my beer or not.

I'll stop here. Thanks for your comment.

These are the people who own Goose Island. Are you disgusted yet? What does it take, anyway?

This story has been linked far and wide, but if you haven't yet seen it, learn exactly why "there has never been a beer company like AB InBev," and how the reasons bode ill for anyone interested in beer, as opposed to ways of making money.

The Plot to Destroy America's Beer, by Devin Leonard (Bloomberg Business Week)

... The man in charge of AB InBev is 52-year-old Carlos Brito. The Brazilian-born chief executive is a millionaire many times over. He speaks English fluently and dresses like the manager of a local hardware store. At the Manhattan headquarters, he wears jeans to work and tucks in his shirts. He keeps his company identification badge clipped to his waist where everybody can see it, even though everyone knows who he is. To the rest of the world, he keeps a low profile. He does not, for example, accept interview requests from Bloomberg Businessweek. That might be his character, and it might be calculated. The Busch family is a legendary American dynasty. Many people in the U.S. aren’t thrilled that a foreign company now owns Budweiser, America’s beer.

This is not to say that Brito lacks American admirers. Many can be found on Wall Street, where investors care less about where beers are brewed than about how profitable they are. This is where Brito shines. After InBev bought Anheuser-Busch, he slashed costs at the combined company by $1.1 billion in a single year. AB InBev’s margins widened substantially, and its share price has nearly quadrupled since the takeover. In 2011, Brito made Fortune magazine’s Fantasy Sports Executive League Dream Team as a designated hitter ...

As I've noted elsewhere, Brito actually has a point. If the goal is to make mass market swill with little differentiation between numerous wretched brands, then why bother spending money on quality ingredients?

Goose Island, anyone?

Baylor on Beer: Bats, Baseball, Beers & Bucks, at LouisvilleBeer.com.

My second of two February columns has been posted at LouisvilleBeer.com

Bats, Baseball, Beers and Bucks

Posted by Roger Baylor in Baylor on Beer | 0 comments

Photo by Flickr User: Andrew Malone

Professional baseball’s spring training is underway, and it isn’t too early to begin considering the prospects for locally brewed craft beer at Louisville Slugger Field in 2012. The Louisville Bats begin play in April, and only then will we know if the fragile, halting forward progress of craft beer availability during the past three years will be repeated this season.

I shan’t be holding my breath, but as usual, I hope I’m mistaken.

Old news item: Goose Island completely annexed, entirely absorbed by AB-Inbev.

Is the craft beer world coming to an end?

No, it isn’t. Actually, it’s starting to make a bit more sense. Like theories of tectonic plates and continental drift, the beer categories are slowly separating by money, just as the capitalist system insists they should.

Most of us will concede that we’re for sale. We may be more or less interested in negotiating a price, but we’re still for sale. It is neither a moral nor ethical discussion. It’s just reality. Having acknowledged it, you may breathe a sigh of relief, because few of us are sufficiently valuable to attract the big bucks.

Value is a very funny thing, indeed. As the stories began circulating about the $38 million Goose Island deal, our local newspapers were reporting about a proposed real estate development on New Albany’s riverfront totaling investments of $43 million.

While most of Craft Beer Nation rushed to the ramparts to defend Goose Island’s honor before even knowing the dimensions of the story, I was thinking: Wow, even factoring in the previous investment shares in distribution … $38 million for 127,000 barrels, compared to $43 million for a parking garage, plaza, condos and commercial space … geez; what does it all mean, anyway?

Should I have gone into real estate instead?

Look, this isn’t Einstein. Goose Island’s owners sold out – note I’m not saying they’re “sell-outs”, which means something else in popular culture terms, but isn’t appropriate here. They sold business interests in a somewhat open market, and in doing so, they became transformed from an entity that interests me to one that no longer does. It is nothing personal. It is nothing at all. It just is what it is, which is true.

What does it mean to craft beer? Very little in the larger sense, because there are several hundred of us prepared to fill the gap and keep the flag in the sir.

However, it must be conceded that AB-Inbev surely intends to use this erstwhile craft toy to aggressively combat the interests of craft beer in the venues where its money buys space on the top shelf, whether by hoarding shelf space in supermarkets or engaging in the usual concessionaire’s extortion in closed settings like airports and stadiums.

This means that we’ll have a better beer choice, somewhere, in the form of ex-craft, its placement achieved by business as usual, which we generally loathe – and rightly so.

Will you still drink Goose Island, now that the money flies to a board room somewhere overseas? That’s your decision.

If it’s the only choice before the jet way rolls back, will I swallow hard and fork over ten bucks for 16 ounces of Honkers?

Honestly, I don’t know.

Has something died?

Yes. Then again, death is a necessary part of life.