Oh Look, It's Another Major Brewery Merger! - August 2004
As I type these words in late July, the Canadian media is in a froth over the proposed union between Canada's oldest brewery, Molson, and the number three in the United States, Coors. Billed as a 'merger of equals,' the deal has caught the attention of business writers on both sides of the border, but also aroused the curiosity and concern of Canadian nationalists who see the deal as a further dilution of the integrity of the Canadian beer biz, since its completion would mean that all of one and one-half of the other of our two national breweries would be foreign-owned.
(Labatt, which is in a virtual market share tie with Molson, is entirely owned by the Belgian brewing monolith, Interbrew.)
Personally, I've got to wonder what they're so worried about. In my view, there hasn't been any truly Canadian character to our national, mass-market brews for a long time, and I doubt that the marriage of an American family brewery to a Canadian family brewery will have any effect on that one way or the other. Because let's face it, as the global brewing business becomes further concentrated in the hands of a few, it is also becoming increasingly homogeneous.
Don't believe me? Try tasting a Molson Canadian, Labatt Blue and (Labatt-brewed) Budweiser side-by-side and blind. Or substitute or add an American Bud and Miller Genuine Draft, or Coors Banquet Beer. It doesn't really matter which you choose because they will all taste more-or-less the same.
As any Canadian beer drinker over the age of forty will be able to tell you, it was not always thus. Back in the 1970's, before the advent of lifestyle marketing in beer, which sold an image or, in advertising speak, a 'badge' rather than a taste, the major brands from Canada's national breweries were well known as being more full-bodied and hoppy than those of their American peers. But even as early as 1977, beer maven Michael Jackson, in the original edition of his book, 'The World Guide to Beer,' decried the fact that "The 'Canadian' character is giving way to the 'American'."
It's the same in Europe. Blind taste a Carlsberg, a Stella, a Beck's and a Heineken and see if you can find a discernable difference or, more unlikely, identify the brands by name. Or travel to Asia and line up a Sapporo, a Kirin and a Asahi to the same result. It's called globalization, and in the world of beer, it means extricating flavours that might count as distinguishing characteristics so that the product may be more effectively sold on image alone.
(In a remarkable illustration of this practice, which I must admit I find to be quite hilarious, a major component of the current advertising campaign for Coors Light in Canada lauds the fact that it is distinguished from the pack by the fact that it is cold. Not better tasting, or more popular or even hipper than the rest, just cold.)
So Molson will likely merge with Coors, and the majority of Canada's big brewery interests will suddenly be under foreign control. Big deal. For those of us who choose our beverages based upon their taste rather than their image or temperature, it will all amount to little more than a blip on the radar, after which we will return to our true pilsners and hoppy pale ales and roasty porters and stouts and wonder what on earth all the fuss was about.
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