Big, Blind Put Down

SABMiller is buying London craft brewery Meantime.  This quote from a Financial Times' article on the transaction quotes SABMiller executive Susan Clark:

She said SABMiller had a record in nurturing local beer companies and added that the craft label was becoming less relevant.

 “The whole craft definition is one that over time we will see disappear. Craft for us is more about style, authenticity, than it is about the kind of label,” she said. “At SABMiller we love local variety and carefully nurture our 200 local and heritage beers.”

I cannot remember reading a more condescending comment on craft beer.   There are now more than 70 brewers operating in London alone, up from just 14 in January 2014, and buying one of them does not make SABMiller hip.  SABMiller can go ahead and believe the craft definition will disappear, but something is obviously happening in beer drinkers' behavior with that kind of growth.  Here in the US, from a statistic in the latest BeerAdvocate magazine (Issue #100), craft beer represented 11% sales of beer in 2014, up from 5% of sales in 2010.  I enjoy the myopic hubris of the big brewers.  They have already lost the consumer battle in many parts of the United States and appear to not even know it.