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Comment by sushisource | Hacker News Reader

I have a hard time getting worked up over these acquisitions. If the beer is still good, who cares? If you're really upset about it, there are still literally thousands of other craft breweries to choose from.

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Nice sentiment, but it's a bit unnerving to see an industry consolidating like this while ALSO buying out sites that review the beer. Having few large, central corporations control both the market and the medium by which the products are reviewed is not a good thing.

The reviewing sites thing is silly.

However, it sure seems like an opportunity for new beer reviewing websites to pop up!

If Underarmour refuses to buy your running tracker, pivot to a beer review site!

I guess the tricky thing would be measuring what they do the site. If they take it down or delete negative reviews, etc, that would be some questionable behavior. If they use it to gain honest feedback and funnel it into development channels of some kind that could prove interesting. Overall seems like a conflict of interest.

I wonder how much appetite they'd have to buy up the next review site that pops up and catches on. Sort of like review site whak-a-mole. It would be very disconcerting to say the least if a company went out and bought up all new and fledgling review sites of interest to them.

A public review site is public. You don't need to buy it to gain honest feedback.

that's true, but I'm thinking they'd bake in some in-house custom API for organizing it all and rendering it into some sort of data analytics repo. I guess this could be accomplished too via the public interface and just work around things indirectly.

What people don't like are the bad business practices, like buying up review sites (can anyone spell "conflict of interest"), locking in alcohol distributors to certain brands, etc. They're limiting consumer choice, locking out competitors and potentially misleading consumers.

I'll agree with you, if it tastes good it tastes good. McDonald's also still tastes good to me, but I abhor their business practices so I avoid eating there.

A lot of economists like to cite this model of a "rational agent," but consumers have more dimensions than just price and quality, increasingly they also see ethics as either a part of quality, or an additional dimension, when judging which product they should buy.

I get that, but, as I mention you've still got thousands of other options to choose from

Yes, this was one of the thousands of other options. Emphasis on was. What guarantee do I have that once people move to another platform and start trusting it, they won't purchase that?

When restaurants and bars use an AB InBev-owned distributor and thus are restricted to only having AB InBev brands on tap, I lose the choice to drink one of those thousands of other beers when I'm there. Not going to a concert because the venue has the wrong beer distributor is not really tractable.

That's not really an excuse.

The beer is still good, until it isn't. As an anecdote: A Lagunitas beer [1] used to be a favorite of mine. At some point I didn't like it anymore, and stopped buying it. I didn't know they got bought by Heineken, and I don't know if the events are related, but it's possible.

[1] Little Sumpin' Sumpin'

Small changes over time is what killed Schlitz. A once famous brand that you probably haven't heard of if under 40.

https://beerconnoisseur.com/articles/how-milwaukees-famous-b...

Since that article is from 2010, it's worth noting that Schlitz was relaunched, probably shortly after that article came out. Mainly in tall boys, boasting the original 1960s recipe. It is what it is.

Brewing these days is uniquely local. When buying craft, you're buying not only good beer, but you're supporting your neighbors and fellow enthusiasts in the craft. When a beer gets bought by the big conglomerates, the feeling of supporting "the little guy" goes away.

I know multiple people who stopped buying Karbach beers after they got bought. Sure they'll drink it if it's free, but why support bean counters and 1%ers when you can give some money to the people doing it for love?

How do you know the beer is still good if the manufacturer owns the review site?

Taste it?

What if you can't taste it because your local grocery store stocks its beer selection based on what beers are the best according to the beer review site owned by ABI? It's not as simple as "just make a different choice", monopolies can exert control over the whole system the consumer lives in, not just the small decisions.

Don't be naive. They stock beer based on who PAYS THEM the most for their shelf space. Same goes for any other product.

Don't be too cynical. They stock beer based on who pays them the most for shelf space, and based on what sells. You can get them to carry your dreck that nobody wants if you pay them enough, but you can't get them to not carry what people are buying.

As in, assume the review sites are compromised and ignore them, but also give money to the company that might or might not be posting biased reviews there? So you're only denying yourself the potential benefit of the review site while still giving up your money.

"there are still literally thousands of other craft breweries to choose from."

Taste all of them? I'm not an alcoholic by trade man, reviews are necessary.

That was my initial though to. Here’s a good discussion from Sessionable on the subject from independent breweries perspective and their main concerns seem to be around access to taps and consumer awareness when independents get bought out.

https://overcast.fm/+BwaxYul7M

It won't be that way much longer if these events are allowed to happen

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