Brewing Company Celebrates No Longer Being Owned by Anheuser-Busch - Flashback
Editor’s Note: Our readers responded strongly to this story when it originally ran; we’re reposting it here in case you missed it.
They’ll drink to that!
An Oregon brewery that was spun off by the parent company of embattled beer brand Bud Light threw a social media celebration to spread the news.
The brewer’s staff tossed a banner over an outdoor balcony, popping beer cans and spraying foam into the air.
And as usual in such cases, a picture was worth a thousand words.
“Now with less Anheuser-Busch!” the banner proclaimed.
In a news release on Oct. 2, the founder of 10 Barrel Brewing Co. in Bend, Oregon, welcomed the brewing company’s purchase by Tilray Brands Inc., a Canadian cannabis and packaged goods company, from brewing giant Anheuser-Busch, according to New School Beer, an online publication that covers the craft beer and cider industry.
“We are excited for 10 Barrel and our new partner, Tilray! Our team has always been focused on making the best beer, and most importantly, having fun,” Chris Cox, who still manages the company, said in the release.
Most Americans who follow the news can think of a few good reasons a company might not want to associate itself with Bud Light lately, after the nation’s once-most-popular beer brought itself into disgrace with a woefully misguided decision to partner with social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney — a grown man who apparently enjoys playing dress-up as a woman.
Possibly even worse than the Mulvaney move, though, were the comments by an Anheuser-Busch now-former vice president who disparaged the company’s previously loyal Bud Light customer base as basically being too low for Bud Light’s enlightened executives.
Taken together, they amounted to an in-your-face insult to the kinds of conservative Americans who made Bud Light number one in the country, and they sparked a boycott that’s cost Anheuser-Busch badly over the past six months, is going to keep hurting the Bud Light brand at the retail level for the next year, and is likely to be remembered by advertising and marketing experts for decades to come.
But the staff at 10 Barrel Brewing had another reason entirely to celebrate.
With the 10 Barrel Brewing no longer being by Anheuser-Busch, the company can rejoin the ranks of “craft and independent” breweries, which makes the company eligible for “benefits and recognition,” according to New School Beer.
It also makes 10 Barrel Brewing eligible to join local trade associations, such as the Oregon Brewers Guild.
In short, there are plenty of reasons a company that started as an independent craft brewery might want to get out of a corporate monolith with a currently tainted reputation like Anheuser-Busch.
That’s true even if the new ownership company is also a corporate giant. Besides 10 Barrel Brewing, Tilray purchased five other Anheuser-Busch beer brands, one cider brand and one energy drink brand, according to a Tilray news release.
Tilray was already a fair-sized beverage company even before buying the Anheuser-Busch brands, as its news release makes clear, on top of its status as the largest cannabis company in the world.
So, 10 Barrel Brewing might not be returning to its roots as a truly independent beer maker, but at least it’s shedding its relationship with Anheuser-Busch’s tarnished reputation.
Whatever their reasons were, it’s clear as day that those 10 Barrel employees were up for a celebration — and celebrating saying goodbye to Anheuser-Busch.
Millions of American beer drinkers, disgusted with the company, have already done the same.
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