BOULDER — The Brewers Association, a national organization based out of Boulder, is attempting to purchase Anheuser-Busch InBev, with the largest crowd-funding campaign to date.
The association’s ‘Take Craft Back‘ campaign is looking to raise $213 billion. That’s right: $213 billion.
Since its creation less than a month ago, thousands of supporters have already pledged more than $3.5 million (they don’t have to make an actual donation until the Brewers Association hits that $213 billion mark).
“Even if every person on this planet were to donate $10 to the campaign, we still wouldn’t even have a third of what we need,” explained Julia Herz, the Craft Beer Program Director at the Brewers Association. “[This is] a campaign that is really using humor to get at a pretty serious issue”.
One of those issues for the Brewers Association: Anheuser-Busch purchasing former independent breweries, like Breckenridge Brewery.
“Since 2011 Anheuser-Busch has made 10 acquisitions of former independent breweries,” Herz said. “There’s a lack of transparency going on in the actual labels, cans and bottles on those beers. You can’t tell as a beer lover when you’re buying a beer from a conglomerate beer company.”
The biggest concern for the association is a beer marketplace that’s currently not balanced, Herz explained. According to the Brewers Association’s latest figures, craft brewers are responsible for 98% of the 5,700 breweries scattered across our country. But Herz said they have less than 13% market share by volume.
“This is about ownership, transparency in the market place and frankly – what’s fair,” Herz said.
‘Take Craft Back’ has produced two comedic videos to explain their campaign. Although the videos are funny, they carry a serious message. Click here to watch.
In response to the Brewers Association’s campaign, Anheuser-Busch sent us this statement:
We can take a joke!
While the fake money for this campaign “piles” up, we will keep focusing our donations on giving back to communities across our country. We’re proud of the more than 2.8 million cans of emergency drinking water we’ve donated in 2017 alone, with more than two million of those cans going out the past month alone to Texas, Puerto Rico, Florida, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Northern California. As a company, with 18,000 U.S. employees and together with our craft partners, we’ve given more than 13 million dollars to worthy causes this year. That’s a campaign worth celebrating in our book! – Anheuser-Busch Representative
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