The dust is still settling from Beavertown’s announcement that they’d sold an undisclosed stake in their London-based company to Heineken and social media is a buzz with opinions (good and bad) regarding the sale.
And here’s some significant industry voices on the matter…
Manchester, England’s Cloudwater threw down immediately when they learned of the Beavertown/Heineken deal…and announced that they’d no longer be attending the Beavertown Extravaganza…
Responding to a customer’s complaint, Cloudwater positioned their decision to boycott the Beavertown Festival this way… “If we’d known then what we know now, we wouldn’t have signed up for this year in the first place
BrewDog co-founder James Watt was equally unforgiving….
We will no longer be selling Beavertown beers or attending Beaver Ex. I wrote this piece in 2015 but it seems very relevant today too https://t.co/36Jn93MRI3
— James Watt (@BrewDogJames) June 21, 2018
The Drinks Business is reporting that Hop, Burns & Black, a craft beer bottle shop / record store-and artisan hot sauce purveyor in south London, made a website announcement that in spite of the fact that Beavertown beers make up 8% of the shop’s total revenue , they’d no longer be selling their product,,,
“We are, frankly, f*cking gutted about this but we feel strongly that we need to be true to our principles and our support of independent beer.
Beavertown has been hugely instrumental in developing the UK craft beer scene and to sell to Heineken (no matter what the share) feels, quite frankly, like a slap in the face.”
Heineken – like AB InBev – does not have the health of the UK independent beer scene at heart. Dressing up this move as good for the consumer is just spin – in reality this is simply helping Big Beer chip away at the UK independent beer scene. As independent retailers whose business is also at risk from Big Beer’s targeting of the industry, we cannot support this.”
In the words of Ru Paul, we've made some decisions… and one of those is that we will no longer be selling Beavertown beer. We are gutted about this but we feel strongly that we need to be true to our principles & our support of independent beer: https://t.co/DX0tC19PgW pic.twitter.com/cizDuLOfwe
— Hop Burns & Black (@hopburnsblack) June 21, 2018
IndieBeer a North London beer shop that prides themselves as “Selling beers from independent brewers” posted a picture that amplified their position.
https://twitter.com/indiebeershop/status/1009771655286218754
And Silver Street Brewing took a more philosophical tack to Beavertown’s decision that seemed honest…
So many opinions tweeting around about Beavertown. You know when you like a band for their first couple of albums and you see them as a support act and at festivals a few times, and then go see them on their own, maybe get a t-shirt, and then they get signed & have a hit and all
— Silver St Brewing Co (@silverstbrew) June 22, 2018