Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
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Oh for fuck’s sake. Apparently there were rumours about this but I hadn’t read them so it’s an unpleasant surprise for me. Why Lion though? Why such an unethical company? I guess they’re all unethical in their own ways but still.
Well, I personally won’t be seeking out their beers any more, just as I’ve stopped buying Beavertown. May drink the odd special here and there but I’m guessing there won’t be so many of them around either. For example I can’t see the likes of Cloudwater, Deya, Verdant etc. ever collaborating with them again - goes against their whole ethos’.
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I was surprised by this, and certainly saddened especially as they were my top-rated brewery last year.
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Think we will see plenty More.
Lets face it all those that wanted to form that UCF (or what ever it was called) BD, Beavertown and MR. Have sold to Big money.
There only so far they can go without it.
In a crowded Market and lets face it it is a crowded market. You stay Small like Kernel or you Grow.
As you grow you top out in a squeezed market. You could then stand still But that small market is fickle you stop being the cool guy and then what your left adrift, or you keep growing. but that means external money
Give it a few more years and id not be surprised to see some of the new cool kids go the same way
Me too, bought my last beer from them this week in this case. Shame they were one of my first favourite UK breweries, no wonder they are selling Canonball for ÂŁ1.70 a can in Tesco
Tesco will have a much larger craft beer selection from next week including a number of Magic Rock apparently. Would rather see Verdant, Wylam, Deya on their shelves but it’s good to see supermarkets upping their game. These breweries selling out to the big boys will probably dumb down their offerings in the future.
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shit
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Wild Card, Five Points, UnBarred, Fourpure, Thornbridge, LBF, North all have new beers in Tesco this week. My local Tesco Express now has not one, but two DIPAs in the fridges at 3 quid a pop.
On buy-outs, it sounds like the sale of Tiny Rebel will be announced soon too.
The trouble for me is that finding these beers in a supermarket dulls the excitement. I have Tiny Rebel, Yeastie Boys and Thornbridge fatigue just because you see their beers so often.
And here I was smuggly enjoying drinking a can of Magic Rock and feeling superior to the beer plebs while waiting in line at the Guinness storehouse in Dublin last month. I guess they had the last laugh…
I never really cared when a band sold out to a major, as long as the songs were there and they hadn’t made a huge departure from their sound.
I’d like to feel the same about breweries, but I just can’t. At least bands can leave a record label. Once these breweries are owned 100% by someone else, the future is out of their hands. Read the book about the story of La Chouffe recently, how they sold out to Duvel 2006, ramped up their output, automated production, took advantage of Duvel’s marketing and distribution… one of the co-owner who had been in control of brewing had little to do, so started up his own small brewery Lupulus to continue doing what he loved.
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Agreed. I haven’t bought a Beavertown beer since they sold to Heineken and am unlikely to be anything from Magic Rock in the future, they were once one of my favourite breweries.
A few years ago I would have seen the availability of these beers in supermarkets as a real win as there were a LOT of places where you simply couldn’t find decent beer. That really isn’t the case now and with so many independent breweries around there isn’t really any need to drink anything that is owned by a conglomerate anyway.
I 90% agree with this. I did start to explain why it wasn’t the whole 100% but the post ended up becoming a biography of the band Samiam so I deleted it!
