Carly Fisher of The Feast tweeted this at us this morning, and we thought it interesting enough to pass it on to you, Constant Reader: Dogfish Head’s Sam Calagione on the Goose Island Sale. Calagione was at an event last night where The Feast caught up with him. After some discussion, they touched upon the Goose Island/A-B buyout.
You can find that video here, since we can’t seem to embed it yet. But this is what it looks like, sorta, if we were to embed it. Go watch it, then come back.
You can tell Sam is trying to be diplomatic, but one particular statement stands out when he uses this phrase:
“One-time craft brewers.”
Zing.
He goes on to explain that he loves having “that indie rep” and digs being the David among Goliaths (which, of course, is also arguable – he’s a pretty big “David” compared to almost all others). Cheers to Sam for speaking his mind and also, we presume, saying what a lot of other craft brewers are thinking.
Goose Island, of course, sold to Anheuser-Busch just a few days ago, the first major craft brewer to sell to a larger macrobrewery. Will more breweries sell to huge brewing companies? Or is this just an outlier in an otherwise large wave of independent craft brewing? Or both! Who knows!