InBev

Is it possible they're not very smart?





Be sure to follow the link there to the original Business Week article.

Is it possible they're not very smart? ... Be sure to follow the link there to the original Business Week article.

Waddell writes:

It is with nostalgia for my vice-laden youth that I am glad to have grown up in America before InBev existed - in a time when good beer was plentiful and cheap.

Plentiful and cheap? Uh, hmm, well ... not unless Waddell is Methuselah and drank beer prior to Prohibition, which leads us to an unexpected conclusion: Brito actually has a good point.

Whether Bud, Beck's or Stella, if it's going to be wretched, anyway, why spend good money on ingredients?

Conflicting reports aside, (cough) Roger (cough), one thing that amuses me is that the old A-B comes across as being concerned about the integrity of their products. InBev? Not so much.

I guess this just shows that no matter how bad things are, they can always get worse.

Firstly I can't take the guy in the article seriously if he thinks German brewed Becks was a good beer. It's pee-water. As bad or worse than Stella or, as it's called here in Europe, "wife-beater".

As for whether these people are smart.... just look at it this way. When Brito took over a few years ago you could have invested a thousand in the S&P and you would have waited til just now to get your money back. Or, you could have invested in Inbev, booked a 100% profit.... that's double your money, paid off a bunch of bills, and still had money left over to buy plenty of the craft brew of your choice. Seriously, who cares if InBev "ruins" such quality beers as Bud, wife-beater, Becks, Michelob, etc. Most of their beers were mass-market crap to begin with.

I never proactively drink any InBev products. If a friend offers though, I'll drink one. As far as liking it goes, I take people at their word. If they say they liked Beck's but it's gotten worse, I believe them. Shrugs.

Personally, I'm actually more interested in what they do with Goose Island, as they actually have a few products that I have enjoyed, like Bourbon County Imperial Stout for example.

You are right though, should've went all in on InBev. Or Microsoft. Or Apple. Facebook? Not so much.

Leffe, Spaten, some of the Hoegaardens, Franziskaner, some of the Löwenbräus... all fairly drinkable.

Thanks for the link. I'm not in the beer business (wish I was though) but reading this article was a good bit of inspiration. Cheers!

Is it possible they're not very smart? ... Be sure to follow the link there to the original Business Week article.

Waddell writes:

It is with nostalgia for my vice-laden youth that I am glad to have grown up in America before InBev existed - in a time when good beer was plentiful and cheap.

Plentiful and cheap? Uh, hmm, well ... not unless Waddell is Methuselah and drank beer prior to Prohibition

Well, considering Inbev didnt exist until the Interbrew/Ambev merger, I can only assume he is talking about the late 90s or early 00s.

Plentiful, sorta. Cheap, sorta.

Works for me.

Leffe, Spaten, some of the Hoegaardens, Franziskaner, some of the Löwenbräus... all fairly drinkable.

agreed. all of these you mentioned (with exception of the lowenbrau) are a few rungs above swill.