Its pretty silly to say ZX is just going make up numbers about Budweiser products and there is no basis for it.
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No, it’s not different at all because it’s social networking. The law applies to ALL websites.
I mean I get what you’re saying but nobody asked about removing their data, we simply want to download our data so we have our own copy of it. Big difference.
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Yeah, most everyone flipped their stuff with the partial investment last year. I don’t think it would have mattered to any of them if it was 1% or 100%.
I can see complete ownership bothering a few people who were fine with the partial investment (a few users here have already said they’re done now), but I would assume that most of the people that bothered by AB are already long gone.
The people who don’t use the site were already “done” with the site after the initial investment.
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And those were not many despite some loud public protests.
For those worried about what other people think, it’s always been the case that we’ve endured loads of hate from the very early days and ever since. Some people here might remember another site banning their own users for the single reason that they simply had a RateBeer account. There was a lot of public hatred as well from members of the other group, stirred up by militant slogans.
I was warned very early on by a brewer who was very angry with me that the site and its ranking system really only rewards a small select group – fewer than 20% of brewers have “marketable” ratings – and that we should change to reward far more. He mentioned how Robert Parker, the great wine critic, awarded score of 85 or above to 90% of the wines he tasted. “About half would be more fair.” I apologize for telling him to take a hike. We certainly have far more enemies out there because of my refusal of his advice.
Thanks for all the discussion here! Many of us are reading through.We’ll have team-readied answers soon.
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Absolutely no basis for it. RateBeer’s important part in the greater community is the fairness, expert-bias, and reliability we provide. That’s where our greatest value lies.
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So everything is really okay then?
I’m sorry you feel this way. As an opinion maker, RateBeer very certainly positively affects small brewers, many American brewers, to a much greater degree than larger brewers. We’ve done a lot of heavy lifting for quality craft brewers, most of them small, and will continue to serve the whole beer community.
In some very real way, I do feel that AB InBev actually enhances and improves craft beer by doing much to sustain the overall market, allowing smaller brewers to buy equipment and materials at prices that wouldn’t otherwise exist at their scale. Many of the early brewers went through educational programs which wouldn’t have existed without feeder programs to large commercial brewers.
And for all this talk of AB InBev trying to shut down craft brewers or consumer choice, one only need to look at how many breweries there are and what consumer choice is today. If they’ve been accused of trying to shut it down, one of two things must be true: (1) they are really terrible at it and shouldn’t be taken seriously as a threat (many new small brewers seem to be the reported cause of most closures this past year), or (2) the accusation is false.
The people working on RateBeer, are full time RateBeer people, working only on RateBeer. We love great beer and believe we’re doing a lot to keep our readers excited about and interested in beer, and that this is a benefit to everyone in the beer industry.
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Yes, Claude. Things are fine.
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Perhaps you do? 
I’ll enthusiastically dig in if you’d like to have a spirited debate about this, but perhaps we should take this to a different thread if you do. Just let me know!
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I’ll have this spirited debate with you. Name the smaller brewers you’re referencing and the specific equipment and materials they bought from AB In-Bev for a discounted price (and don’t confuse discounted prices with used equipment).
Sierra Nevada and other large craft brewers have given the smaller guys access to hops, etc. that they otherwise wouldn’t have had. This happened specifically when SN opened its NC facility.
Please tell me specific examples of how AB In-Bev has provided financial resources for small, unnamed brewers, including the names of the brewers helped. I don’t want hyperbole; I want concrete examples to substantiate your claim.
Once we get through this question, we can continue the spirited debate, as I have more.
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We agree Ratebeer in the past has positively affected small brewers. Time will tell if that happens going forward. I haven’t stayed for 17 years without seeing some benefit and I’m not leaving, at least not until I see what happens.
I don’t know what it means to sustain the overall market. As they make beer for the many, not the few, and use adjuncts like corn and rice, what is that doing to sustain the market? How many young people go through college thinking they don’t like beer because they have Busch Light from a keg at a party, so they turn to wine or vodka when turned off by the adjunct laden products from Budweiser?
I’m still curious why they bought in if they already had access to the data.
I’ll take your word for it they are good people and I know you are as well. I hope you can find a way for Ratebeer to continue to be relevant and useful. Congratulations on the sale.
Good to know Canadian cheesemakers are already violating the free trade agreement with the European Union 
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Maybe is produced by Italians living in Ontario. We are everywhere 
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Then it wouldn’t be Pecorino Romano 
It’s mostly about deception that violation: italian name, flag colours, and the defined as “Italian”.
“Pecorino” and “mozzarella” should be free to use because they define the production method and not the origin.
On the other hand, “Pecorino Romano”, “Pecorino Sardo”, “mozzarella di bufala campana” are specific and probably protected in the EU (but I haven’t see any violation in Canada).
A famous Italian ham is Prosciutto di San Daniele, which is a PDO; regardless of legality, from a consumer standpoint, it’s sad to find this San Daniele prosciutto being sold in Canada.
Asiago is another PDO cheese; and yet, there is Canadian asiago too…
To be noted that San Daniele and Asiago are Italian towns, the origin is very clear (not just a made up name). It reminds me about the tale of Emmenthal vs. Emmenthaler…
In most cases, when I see {nation} on a product I expect the product to come from there.
“French brie”, “Spanish wine”, “German landjaeger”, “Swiss chocolate”, “Dutch gouda”. If you see any of that on the label, would you expect it to be produced in USA and Canada???
And yet, local consumers’ association don’t seem to be able to enforce such basic rule.
(of course there are exceptions; we all have come to the understanding that ‘Belgian Ale’ means Belgian-style beer and ‘Neapolitan pizza’ didn’t travel 10.000 km to be served on my table)
Sorry JoeT, I don’t know you and this isn’t meant personally, but seeing you speak about how good AB Inbev is for craft beer, which is plain ridiculous of course, leaves no doubt for me, that this site will ultimately die…
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wtf. Landjäger isn’t even German to begin with…
To the question itself: Hasn’t it always been the case that North America generally interprets an adjective of origin as a style of production, and Europe leans towards using these adjectives to indicate geographic origin?
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I only ate landjaegers in Switzerland, but the north american marketers pick and mix countries 
Maybe like you are saying there is really a different perception.
No doubt that if asking the question “do you really think it comes from {country}?” forces the consumer to think and answer correctly; but when buying he may be tricked…
I’ll investigate!
I kind of like SinH4’s assumption. There are also a couple of other reasons why we don’t fuss much over PDO’s out here.
- We don’t really have any so don’t really care about defending other people’s (as opposed to European countries amongst each other).
- Often we don’t have access to PDO products here except in very specialized shops where the price tag will quickly tell you the difference. It’s not really disloyal competition because the real product is nowhere to be found. If you had Prosciutto di San Daniele at 75$/kg next to the Brampton crap at 35$/kg I would say yes sue them, the fact is I don’t think there’s a store in Canada where you can find both side by side (happy to be proven otherwise!)
