This Bud's NOT for me...

Dear Budwesier,

What the fuck are you doing? Is it too hard to make a good beer?  Do you find making something with flavor  in direct conflict with your Bottom Line?  Are you overwhelmed by the Craft Beer Movement?  I think you've given up.  I think you've thrown in the towel and you're trying to keep your masses of Yo-Bros from taking the red pill and seeing how beer really could taste.

Otherwise, why put out this commercial?

Like the Mean Girls' club in high school, you find it necessary to demean and ridicule that which you can't understand.  You can't believe that what you've been doing is wrong (or, at least, is passé) and so you've got to rag on the others who are doing it right.  Beer, real beer, has a myriad of styles and flavors that appeal to all sorts of folks.  But instead of trying to make a bunch of beers that taste good, you would rather make one type of beer that offends the least.

Your commercial states that it's made for people who like to drink beer, not dissect it.  Actually, what you make is for people who don't know better or who don't care.  You can keep the latter.  And yes, I will sadly admit that some element of extreme oenophilic snobbery has manifested itself.  A lot of people fuss over the grain bill, what type of hops, if they were whirlpooled and if Egyptian honey was used.  But a far greater number of folks will take a slug and decide, on the basest level, if they like it or not.

But here's what confuses me:

If you're distancing yourselves from the craft beer movement, then why did you go and purchase Elysian Brewing Company?  Or Goose Island? Or 10 Barrel?Or my very own, very local Bluepoint Brewing?

You know, I was a little naïve.  I thought that maybe you guys realized that people, overall, wanted more flavor in their beer.  I thought that maybe you realized your pap of a lager was losing steam and you wanted to tap into your vast resources and provide great tasting beer to a lot more people.  I thought you wanted to learn how to bnrew good beer from guys who have been doing it all along.  But it seems I was wrong.

A friend of mine, an unapologetic apostle of West Coast breweries boldy stated that he would never drink Elysian or 10 Barrel ever again.  I chided him and said that, so long as the beer stayed tasty, who really cared?  Again, my naïvité showing through.  He opined that you guys were buying up these little breweries as weapons, as means to leverage shelf space for Chelada and Limerita.  At first, I figured he drank too much double IPA (look it up, it's a really tasty style) but now, I see that he's probably closer to the truth than I'd care to admit.

With the airing of your Superbowl commercial, you made this clear.  You don't give a shit about craft and are only buying these breweries to leverage yourselves better in a market you're losing.

Your commercial was bold (if only your beers were the same).  But taking a direct shot at the Movement you hoped to win over, you've only bolstered our solidarity.  Ya done fucked up, kids.

Instead of wasting all that money on you Superbowl ad, you shoulda maybe used it to learn how to make better beer.