TOPIC:

[quote:1wp7x4xc]A thread on Boards.ie:

Was reading an article from the Sept 2011 issue of Licensing World (Publican trade publication) titled 'Smithwicks joins Craft Revolution' and just wanted to throw up a few quotes some may find interesting, Billy Power, Global quality and programme director for Guinness Global at Diageo says

"There seems to be a market misconception right now that craft means small. Thats not what the category is truly about, in fact to my mind there are is a real danger to producing these 'craft' beers in a small shed"

I dont know what it is about it, they are covering themselves but its just unwarrented bashing suppose thats business though.

He then goes on to give the lads on the beoir forum a little bashing saying

"when our product was announced..... there was outrage on the beoir.org forum that a mainstream producer was 'attempting to jump on the bandwagon'......... It seems however that now the ale has gone on sale in a scattering of Irish pubs the criticism has died down and it has garnered fans on beoir.org......... taste it seems has prevailed"

He then goes on to say that diageo has access to the best raw materials and the most experienced brewers etc etc etc.

Still Licensing World has given the irish microbreweries a quaterly special in the magazine and put out an article on consumer perspective by Sean Billings from Beoir.[/quote:1wp7x4xc]



/waves to the Diageo marketing gals

I am delighted to see that a spokeperson for the foreign duopoly have engaged in commenting,we must be getting our message out there. His swipe about small sheds is great,the retort is "as opposed to using a BIG shed". Mentioning Beoir by name and suggesting we are delighted with their so called craft beer begs us to invite a debate with him maybe on radio about what we are saying. We would like to point out what craft is, and that most reasoned minded people understand craft to mean SMALL production and not LARGE industrial output. I would write more here but clearly they are reading our posts,so I will keep it for the radio debate.
So Sir since you are reading this posts I formerly invite you to a radio discussion,
Yours
Brian Dempsey.

"DEMPSEY":g8d4dcqz wrote: I would write more here but clearly they are reading our posts[/quote:g8d4dcqz]

I wouldn't read anything sinister in to that. All large companies selling consumer products have software that aggregates and analyses what is being said about them in the media, internet, social networks, twitter etc.

The vast majority of beer that will ever be sold will be sold by macros and that's fine. We just want to make sure there's a great choice.

"Diablo":25cyc8ib wrote: [quote:25cyc8ib]A thread on Boards.ie:



/waves to the Diageo marketing gals[/quote:25cyc8ib][/quote:25cyc8ib]

Classic <!-- s:-) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!-- s:-) -->

I knew a guy who bought those quality ingredients for Guinness. He hadn't a baldy.

As for the test of that what that dude says.....well I did a mini sick in my little shed earlier thinking about those poor farmers being driven out of business by Diagio whilst they whack up the price of their beer and blame the commodity markets for it when they had already fixed contracts with them. Shame on you.

Sent from my Desire HD using Tapatalk

Beoir might not be about macro vs. micro but at the end of the day you vote for what you believe in with you wallet.

If you only gave your money to one camp, how do you think it would impact the diversity of beer available to you?

How would it impact the environment?

How would it impact the local economy?

How would it impact the chemicals that you put into your body?



Diageo has failed MISERABLY at launching a successful non-Guinness product; if they find success in the rebranding of Smithwick's as a "craft" product (and it looks like they certainly might be), this is going to become their new modus operandi. And despite our insistence that we're not in some sort of micro vs. macro war over the definition of "craft" beer, the war that doesn't exist will be on our doorsteps...


Diageo and Heiniken with their thisisbeer.ie page are taking aim at the term "irish craft beer" and what Beoir has stood for.

Billy Power's statements on boards.ie are in effect saying "we reject your definition of craft beer right along with your list of places selling what you call "irish craft beer" and insert our own reality."


Adam