Beer-drinkers in the UK who thought that consolidation and “crafty” brews were an evil to be found only in the USA will be distressed by news in today’s Guardian: British craft beer boom stalls as big drinks companies muscle in. The paper says that only eight new breweries opened in the UK in the past…
Why would a big drinks giant buy a craft brewer? Maybe not for the obvious reasons. Or maybe not only for the obvious reasons.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, they say. But it can also debase a good thing, and it is definitely happening to craft beer. People have called it craftwashing, which I find unpalatable, but which is taken to mean: [B]ig brewers (>6 million barrels per year) taking advantage of the increasing sales of craft…