Very good beer and in Louisiana I pay 11.99 for a twelve pack. Cheaper than Bud, Miller or Coors.
We’ll see. They are calling it a partnership, which is usually code for the bigger entity taking a large but not controlling stake in the smaller company. Since it’s privately held we may not know what percentage that is. Not sure if Yuengling has a the suction to get MC to agree to just being a contract brewer and to leverage their distribution partners. That’s certainly part of the deal, but remember that brewers can’t be distributors in most of the US by law. Thus MC’s end on this won’t be as big as you might think, they will be splitting the brewing profits only.
I wouldn’t be at all shocked if in 5 or 10 years that MC buys the company outright.
As for the comparison to Goose Island. I think you have the timelines slightly off. AB “partnered” with Goose by having one of it’s other “partners”, the Craft Brewers Alliance, buy 42% of the company. AB owned a large minority stake in CBA which meant it owned a less big bit still influential minority stake in Goose at that point. At this point Goose started being contract brewed, bottled and canned by some of ABs factories at that point. This is all pre-InBev and for the most part things were kosher, Goose was good and they now had access to a bunch of AB-affiliated distributors around the country. Later, after AB was acquired by InBev, they bought the outstanding 58% of Goose and transferred the CBA shares as well.
So pre-InBev AB did not buy Goose. I also would argue that the claims that AB InBev has cheapened or otherwise meddled with the product are wildly overblown. This is mostly just hipster-speak, Goose had some so-so beers that remain so-so and they have some excellent beers that remain excellent.
You pay more than 12 bucks for a 12 pack of Budweiser?
I wonder how much Yuengling will be here in Wisconsin with having the 2nd lowest beer tax in the nation. Today at the Woodmans I saw 12 pack glass bottles of Icehouse, PBR, and Bud for $5.99, $6.99, and $8.99 respectively.
Thanks for the detailed edumacation. I’m not a connoisseur of beer or the beer industry. It’s interesting to follow vaguely.
I suppose in my case the “cheapening” mostly came from the fact I lived in St. Louis at the time and knew just how rotten evil the Buschs are. Anything they touched became anathema. I had enjoyed GI up until the moment AB got their grubby hands on it then GI was indelibly tainted even if the actual product was unchanged.
All this about the CBA is one of the reasons I’ve always wanted all consumer products to have to list the actual tree of ownership just like most food products have to list the ingredients. For sure it would be a real eye-opener for a lot of people.
This is undoubtedly true. Venture Capital alone would probably send a chill down a lot of consumer’s spines, and it would also explain why so many billionaires tend to grow their wealth so damn fast.
As for the Busch/AB thing, I get you on that. Whatever the flaws of the Busch’s, AB is a very skilled brewer and for the most part their subsidiaries fair reasonably well even after AB gets involved. AB’s all about the merchandising, having all these craft beers in their portfolio allows them to better compete for shelf space, tap handles and signage, which is all about selling more Bud and Bud Light. Shaving a few cents off the cost of a bottle of 312 doesn’t do a damn thing for their profits. Having their salespeople and delivery drivers showing up at every boutique beer bar, gastropub and high-end retailer is an opportunity to place their core products which do the real volume and have big margins.
The craft investments are a blocking strategy more than it’s a synergy play. They aren’t watering down these brands to ring out short term gains, that’s more a anti-macro brewer bullshit. Just because McDonalds owned a big stake in Chipotle doesn’t mean they pushed them to start selling grey burgers and using frozen ingredients. It’s a long term play and these people aren’t stupid.