After my most recent blog concerning the ever changing art of the Guinness pour, I received an e-mail from a gentleman who said he worked for Guinness parent company, Diageo. He rightly set me straight on the fact that Guinness draught, whether bottled, canned or kegged, was brewed in Ireland. I quickly confirmed this fact while having a beer with Stephen Beaumont, the very-well traveled beer columnist and author (and great source for such info) while in Philly (Click for my post on Philly Beer Week).  I also re-checked my original online sources and I could see where I screwed up my facts. I made a correction via the blog commentary.

The E-mailer also took me to task on another, deeper issue; the fact that I saw “Diageo” as some overlord, when in fact it’s a merger of Guinness and another consumer product company called Grand Metropolitan. He was asking, in essence, why do I carry such a chip on my shoulder against these mega-brewers. Which begs the question– What’s really wrong with corporate beer?

Look, I am not some naïve, hippie type, anarchist who just hates corporations and capitalism. I am a capitalist, and my “day-job” is in management for a multi-billion dollar mega-corporation. So, I am not one to run with the rabble turning over limos or burning buildings at a G-8 summits around the world. But, over the years I have discovered a few persistent truths…

1. The movie is never as good as the book.
2. Never trust a man or woman who doesn’t drink. (Recovering addicts get a pass on this…)
3. The rich get richer.
4. The poor feel poorer although they live at a much higher standard of living than previous generations of poor folks. (So, actually, the poor keep getting richer, too!)
5. Rap is not music. (Maybe angry performance art?)
6. Corporate buy-outs usually suck for the employees and for the product being bought.
7. Anything that is designed to satisfy the masses is a product of compromise.

Generally speaking, I don’t like what’s happening in the world of “Big Beer.” I am not saying there isn’t a place out there for “industrial beer” or even wine in a box — that’s not what concerns me. I just hate to see large beverage conglomerates swallowing up great, world-class beers and then spitting out a compromised facsimile with the same name. It’s too much like “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” except these victims are not dead.

In fact, they are snatching up some of the most successful and beloved classic beers in the world. I feel the need to lament the fact, for instance, that Pilsener Urquell used to be refreshingly bitter and have a slight touch of buttery diacetyl, which was part of its signature. And what happened to the tart finish of a Hoegaarden witbier? That tartness was a key to what made Hoegaarden the classic witbier that it once was. These beers are now “Corporate beers” and they have fallen victim to a corporate beverage-marketing manager who is paid to grow the market.

These people do whatever they can to eke out a 1 or 2 percent gain in market share. This gain usually happens at the expense of certain flavor characteristics that made the beer unique in the first place. In the case of Hoegaarden, the brewing giant Inbev dumbed down the tart finish. Then our friends at SAB-Miller “smoothed-out” Pilsener Urquell, so it’s no longer the “Original Pilsener” as its (translated) name would lead you to believe.

It has become all too common that these great beers are robbed of their soul in return for a marginal gain in market share. For me it shows a lack of creativity in marketing. Why not market the “tartness” or the “bitterness” aspects of these great beers? These beers stood on their own before they were bought out, so why not try to clone that previous success instead of changing the beer? Not all beers must be flavorless to gain acceptance; there are already plenty of macro-lagers that fill that market segment. Why would these marketing folks want to throw one of these great specialty beers into that mosh-pit?

I remember how Jagermeister managed to take disgustingly flavored (but very German) herbal schnapps and market the very fact that it tasted disgusting. The ad showed a guy wincing in herbal agony just after drinking a shot, with the ad reading “Jagermeister - So Smooth! They didn’t change the stuff by making it taste like candy; they simply introduced already successful schnapps to a new crowd. I am not saying we would want do the same exact thing for beer. But how about billing Pilsener Urquell as “Real refreshment - Real pilsener,” instead of just making it taste more like Bud?

Big is not necessarily bad. Take a look at the way “Big” is done at Samuel Adams, Anchor or Sierra Nevada; they continue to make great beer and they also continue to grow as companies. Unfortunately, these larger craft brewers are often unfairly scorned by some of those anarchist types as corporate sell-outs; but that’s just ignorant nonsense. I wish all craft brewers the same commercial success. I will even give some deserved kudos to a macro-brewer like Diageo for making an attempt to sell the original Guinness through clever advertising and for continuing to promote a great Guinness invention; the “widget”, which delivers a Guinness draught experience right out of the can or bottle.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 20th, 2008 at 2:15 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.