The last five years have been an exciting if trying time for the Craft Beer industry. As much as the boom has helped bring craft beer into the social consciousness, it also has made craft beer a target for conglomerates, such as AbInBev and Constellation Brands. This month the Craft Brewers Association launched a program aimed at highlighting the differences between independent beer and breweries owned by the conglomerates: Take Craft Back.
The idea behind 'take craft back' is to raise the more than $213 billion it would require to buy out Big Beer.
The group launched a pledge-only crowdfunding page that tracks how much progress craft beer enthusiasts are making in their quest to help fund the purchase of Budweiser. To be clear, this is mostly a joke. When craft beer enthusiasts pledge an amount they are rewarded with a piece of "Independent" swag (coasters, beer koozies, stickers, etc.). The swag, the videos and even the pretend movement to buy out "Big Beer" is aimed at helping raise awareness among craft beer drinkers about the differences between independently owned breweries and those owned by conglomerates.
More than a Regular Craft Beer Commercial
In the first few weeks "Take Craft Back" has raised nearly $3 million in pledges, which means it is nowhere near its goal.
It is, however, making the bigger point socially that people care about where their beer comes from. Brewers, in general, are notoriously independent people, and the move by the Brewers Association to get its Independent label promotion to take hold. The Independent Label is a related promotion by the Brewer's Association to try and entice independent brewers to label their beers as such.
Wrangling brewers into a single formation can be tricky. After all, there still are constant fights over trademarks among independent brewers and their companies. Moreover, there are pretty thin margins, which means that changing the packaging (as would be required to adopt the new label add-on) carries both an expense and some more approvals with it.
Nitro beers, the Independent label and dealing with bottle bombs on this week's BWS podcast. https://t.co/Wl0dzSV1BU pic.twitter.com/MrtjjicPos
— stateofthebeer (@stateofthebeer) October 23, 2017
Craft Still Has A Bright Future
The amount of traction both the Independent label and the "Take Back Craft" promotions have had does suggest that craft beer makers slowly are coming together behind the idea though. Already major players like Dogfish Head and Samuel Adams have come on board and even smaller brewers have adopted the "Independent" branding for their breweries, even if it isn't on all the bottles.
Going forward, the Brewer's Association expects the movement to catch on even more widely as participating breweries reach the tipping point.
