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Barrel-Aged Stout and Selling Out

Goose Island, Anheuser-Busch, and How Craft Beer Became Big Business

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Barrel-Aged Stout and Selling Out

By: Josh Noel
Narrated by: Charles Constant
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About this listen

Goose Island opened as a family-owned Chicago brewpub in the late 1980s, and it soon became one of the most inventive breweries in the world. In the golden age of light, bland, and cheap beers, John Hall and his son Greg brought European flavors to America. With distribution in two dozen states, two brewpubs and status as one of the twenty biggest breweries in the United States, Goose Island became an American success story and was a champion of craft beer.

Then, on March 28, 2011, the Halls sold the brewery to Anheuser-Busch InBev, maker of Budweiser, the least craft-like beer imaginable. The sale forced the industry to reckon with craft beer's mainstream appeal and a popularity few envisioned. Josh Noel broke the news of the sale in the Chicago Tribune, and he covered the resulting backlash from Chicagoans and beer fanatics across the country as the discussion escalated into an intellectual craft beer war.

Anheuser-Busch has since bought four other craft breweries, and from among the outcry rises a question that Noel addresses through personal anecdotes from industry leaders: how should a brewery grow?

©2018 Josh Noel (P)2018 Tantor Economics Food & Wine Gastronomy Wine & Beverages Business Chicago
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This was a very interesting look at the state of craft beer in the US seen through the lens of Goose Island. For someone UK based the breweries are not so familiar and the issues raised do not directly map but craft accusations are common world wide now.
Felt it gave a decent balanced view of the industry it was not just a big beer is bad but shed light on some of their goal motivations and tactics.

More than just the Goose Island story

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