It reminds me of 10 Barrel: "The AB-InBev “Why Don’t They Like Us” Tour Continues."

I'm coming late to this one, but better late than never.

The AB-InBev “Why Don’t They Like Us” Tour Continues, by Dan (The Full Pint)

 ... In these articles, we’ve learned that the corporate giant is organizing a dog and pony show (why the long face), in which they are prancing out these figureheads to beer bars in what I’d like to call the “Why don’t they like us?” tour. I say the corporate giant is behind this, as I would hope these newly minted millionaires would be satisfied with the business decision they recently made, and didn’t decide to go on this PR tour on their own. I don’t recall Ben & Jerry scrambling for street cred after selling to Unilever. Dr. Dre didn’t go back to Compton and pander to the homies after selling Beats to Apple for a few billion. Frankly, this is downright embarrassing to watch.

That's spot on.

Once you've sold out, at least have the decency to wear a suit and "own" your defection. See the zombie ... be the zombie.

I wrote the following words in November, 2014, and they're worth standing by. Just substitute the latest brewery name to go, and adjust the cited figure from 3,000 to 4,000-plus.

See? It's easy.

---

Who gives a flying fuck?

10 Barrel's dead as Monty Python's parrot. Find a cheap preacher, pay your respects and bring flowers. Then move on.

10 Barrel's just Zombie "Craft" now.

It's Trojan Ten Barrel.

Don't confuse me with someone who gives a fuck.

You see, back before the beer narcissists were born, we had a revolution to take beer back from the grimy corporatist likes of AB-InBev, which has been, and always will be, the foremost enemy of better beer in this world, as we know it.

Obviously, AB-InBev has the ample resources to buy its way to alleged respectability. Just as obviously, this is the fundamental problem, because money cannot buy authenticity. Even more obviously, drinkers of better beer have hundreds -- nay, thousands -- of legitimate small breweries to choose from, ones that have not been irrevocably bastardized by association (and ownership) with a company that's the closest thing to a Great Beer Satan as we're likely to see in this world ... as we know it.

If you doubt it, do some cursory research on AB-InBev's repellant company history as a symbol of everything wrong with beer and capitalism. It ain't pretty, and I'm sorry if it steps all over your sense of entitlement. Appeasing it does not change the paradigm.

You see, selling one's soul isn't about gray areas. When you sell your soul, you sell your soul. That's what this is about, and whenever possible, in a probably doomed effort to hold onto what tiny bits of soul I may as yet possess, I try not to hand my money over to those who've sold theirs. It's as simple as that. Better beer owes its existence to pride, ideas and principles .. to its very soul.

Sacrifice the soul and you're handing over the revolution to the very same soulless vampires it was fought against in the first place.

It's as simple as that.

10 Barrel's unfortunate demise signals yet again AB-InBev's dull intent to buy what it cannot create. Fortunately, 3,000 other breweries remain that are small, local and real. Pick a few, enjoy their beers, and give your soul some nourishment. Be local. Case closed.

Rest in peace, 10 Barrel Brewing. I'm sure your beers were great, but you're dead now. Who gives a fuck?

Let's have a better beer, shall we?

__

Bourbon County Yawn: There is nothing so desirable that you willingly pay your mortal enemy to have it.

Meme courtesy of Dustin Dilbeck.

BREAKING: Worldwide shareholders of AB-InBev sincerely thank Americans for their devotion to Goose Island products.

According to a resident of an Asian tax haven, "With the Bourbon County Stout profits alone, we can keep craft beer off store shelves in a dozen states."

Added a Brazilian gazillionaire, "Let's hope they never learn."

The Pour Fool on Elysian and AB InBev's "malignant tentacles."

The Pour Fool rules.

During the course of discussing Elysian's absorption into the Evil Empire, I found myself chatting with an employee of Trojan Goose (Island), who freely noted the pride with which he served AB InBev, the single most destructive entity in the history of American brewing.

All I can say is this:

"I'd rather remembered for giving middle fingers to the corporate brewing oligarchs than rim jobs to their shareholders."

Read the Pour Fool. He waxes heroic.

Elysian and AB/InBev: Greed, Overweening Ambition, and the Whoring-Out of a Culture, by Steve Foolbody (Pour Fool)

 ... For those who want a basic primer on how I feel about AB getting its malignant tentacles into ANY part of what has been, for 30 years, the most uplifting, soulful, life-affirming, humane, and decent business segment in American history, this link will take you to my piece on their acquisition of Bend’s 10 Barrel, and this link will go to my Seattle P-I post on AB’s take-over of Chicago’s legendary Goose Island. There’s no need for me to plow all that ground again but just know, if you decide to click over, that every single thing said in those posts applies here."

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.

Pete Coors 2: "We bought a craft brewery in Georgia" and can Keystone it as we please.

The Denver Post's Jeremy Meyers does a truly masterful job in helping swill scion Pete Coors portray himself as a doddering incompetent, as in the previous excerpt.

However, in the passage below, Coors makes quite plain certain truths about the nature and reality of craft: Once his "crafty" DNA (even HE knows the difference) is spattered on 'em, they're damaged goods, in spite of what shoe-gazing beer narcissists insist as they suckle at the Bourbon County teat.

Read as Coors speaks of craft beer acquisitions as though they were baseball trading cards, and imagine him confiding in his fellow monopolists during the annual sex on the beach beer baron confab that if Terrapin doesn't work out, he'll just toss it on the remainders table.

Pete Coors is a windbag and a has-been. I'm not sure what it says about you if you give him (or AB-InBev) your money.

But he appreciates it, thank you very much.

Pete Coors, big beer industry continues to grapple with craft beers, by Jeremy Meyer (Denver Post)

 ... (Pete) Coors said to continue to be fresh, the company is looking at developing more new beers, looking at the possibility of acquiring more breweries and even pushing its new cider brands. He mentioned the 2009 purchase of Terrapin Beer Co. in Georgia as one experiment.

“We know a lot about brewing crafty beers and we are looking at new things all the time,” he said, adding that Colorado Native and Batch 19 have been popular additions. “We have a whole portfolio. Anheuser-Busch has a huge portfolio. They have acquired Goose Island and others. We bought a craft brewery in Georgia, Terrapin. We are a minority interest, which isn’t working out the best. So we are learning about that. And we have a growing cider brand.”

News of Trojan Goose Island Beer Bridge just reached the subway.

This is a joke, right? But we're six weeks past April Fool's Day, aren't we?

As always, we're reminded of how very grateful AB InBev's worldwide shareholders are in the wake of amnesia.

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.

Fare thee well, Blue Point; may the multinational brewing assassins at AB InBev stuff your gills full of cash.

If you can find anything remotely craft-like in the following paragraph, if nothing else it at least proves you are fluent in modern multinational corporate-speak.

Congratulations for that ability, and kudos to Trojan Blue Point for cashing in. Maybe Blue Point and Goose Island can do a collaboration brewed in Leuven.

Wouldn't that be something. It could be called Two Zombies in Belgium.

Anheuser-Busch InBev to acquire Blue Point Brewing Company (Beer Pulse)

... “As we welcome Blue Point into the Anheuser-Busch family of brands, we look forward to working with Mark and Peter to accelerate the growth of the Blue Point portfolio and expand to new markets, while preserving the heritage and innovation of the brands,” said Luiz Edmond, CEO of Anheuser-Busch. “With Anheuser-Busch’s strong beer credentials, we share a commitment to offering high-quality beers that excite consumers. Blue Point brands have a strong following and even more potential.”

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.