Psuedo Craft

I'm growing to hate the likes of Blue Moon and Shock Top. If you didn't already know, Blue Moon is a Miller-Coors product, and Shock Top is an Anheuser-Busch-In-Bev brand. They occupy what is known as the Pseudo Craft segment of your beer aisle alongside Premium, Import, Subpremium, and Craft.

I used to think that of course the big guys wanted a seat at the table when it came to craft beer. It's growing in sales and prestige; why wouldn't the megabrands want a piece? In the book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, it talks about coming from a standpoint of a abundance rather than scarcity, so I thought there was room for everyone to have fun in the wonderful space we call craft. But now it's becoming clear the giants want crush craft again. They've tried before by smashing distribution rights and whatnot (see Beer Wars), but now they're like Neo when he jumps into an agent and destroys him from the inside. It's a bummer.

And today I look at the Harrisonburg Beer Elite group on Facebook only to find this article. Ugh.