Craft Beer Media Weighs In On The Wicked Weed Acquisition

Sometimes it takes the most unexpected events to stir things up and bring out the best in the journalists that cover them. And last week’s purchase of Wicked Weed Brewing by Global Giant AB InBev was one of those times.

And here are some of the industry’s more interesting and thoughtful takes on what went down last week…

Treachery, set the tone for a piece that was published in the Chicago Tribune last week. The quote itself was lifted from the many comments left on Wicked Weed’s Facebook page after they made their announcement last Wednesday, and pretty much captures the tenor of betrayal that many of the brewery’s fans still feel.

Draft Magazine took the Wicked Weed acquisition as an opportunity also publish a timely online article on “What it’s like to work for a brewery that “sold out.” It’s written by an unnamed insider (!), who works at one of these “sell out” breweries – and is an insightful and fascinating take “on the good, the bad, and what the rest of the industry gets wrong about working for an AB InBev-owned brewery.”

It’s almost given that Good Beer Hunting would afford us one of the most balanced accounts of last week’s big story. In “From the Gutters to the High End — How Wicked Weed Grew Like One” they delve into the brewery’s founding and history and its fast rise to national acclaim. And they went on to handle this controversial acquisition in a “business-first” and non-judgmental manner that we couldn’t help but appreciate.

Creature Comforts’ Chris Herron also took to GBH last week, and posted the incredibly thoughtful “Watch the Hands, Not the Cards — The Magic of Megabrew, ”a worthy if not wonky analysis of the “whys” and “why nots” of Big Beer’s craft beer acquisition strategy, that was.

And as we wrote in Jester King Says Goodbye to Wicked Weed Beer, and have detailed to death in the past in editorials like Actions Have Consequences, the greater the integrity, a brewery is perceived to have by its fans, the tougher it is for them to forgive (let alone ever accept) that brewery.

And yes, we expect that Wicked Weed will continue to brew world class beer. And given AB In-Bev’s considerable money, resources and clout they will grow an even larger sales base than they ever had before.

It just won’t be the same passionate audience that championed them in the past, because at least from our perspective…actions have consequences