Australian Craft Brewers Take On Big Beer Multinationals

The Big Beer vs independent craft breweries battles are now taking place all over the world, including Australia, where independent brewers are stepping up their game against multinational giants who are producing “faux craft” beers to cash in on a $487 million market.

Here’s the deal…

Just as in the states, Australia’s independent craft beer brewers are under assault by international brewing conglomerates with ‘crafty’ properties that they’re marketing to public as ‘independent’ even though they’re part of multinational companies.

According to Sydney Morning Herald, Lion who now controls 40.9% of all Australian beer sales, owns ‘once’ craft brands like Little Creatures, White Rabbit, James Squire, Furphy and Byron Bay Brewery.

SAB now owns ‘once independents’ like Matilda Bay. Redback, Fat Yak and Dogbolter. And in 2107 AB InBev acquired 4 Pines which as we’ve reported they’re bringing to the US, as well as Pirate Life which was voted Australia’s best brewery.

So clearly Big Beer’s mission to confuse the consumer and water-down the meaning or true brewing independence is as pronounced in Australia as it is in the US.

And why, one year after the Australian Independent Brewers Association announced they would exclude breweries with more than 20% ownership from outside interests, the IBA duplicated a strategy that is similar to the Brewers Association in the states, and introduced  their own special designation.

The new “Certified Independent” seal (the word craft was disregarded by the Australia’s Independent Brewers Association because they felt its meaning had already become severely eroded) will be printed on the labels of independent brewers to help delineate a true craft brewery from the growing number of ‘faux craftys’ in the land down under…