Hi beer fans, happy Friday! Come share a cold one with us!
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Beer News: I didn’t expect I would do more follow-up on this old story, but I DEFINITELY didn’t expect there’d be a completely new take on it that you’d need to hear.
First the sales numbers: I can’t find the old link now, but last year when Bud Light got politicized and sales plummeted one response by AB-Inbev was to start pushing their Michelob Ultra brand harder in that market segment. Guess what? It worked. Michelob Ultra has moved past Bud Light into second place in U.S. beer sales (Modelo Especial remains in first place).
Bud Light represented 6.5% of beer dollar sales in U.S. stores in the four weeks ended July 6, compared with 7.3% for Michelob Ultra and 9.7% for Modelo, according to The Wall Street Journal. In February 2023, the brand had a better than 10% of the total beer sales in U.S. retail stores.
Now the new part: Did you think the boycott was just the work of social media loudmouths like Kid Rock? Finally someone decided to look into that (no surprise, it’s the Guardian not any U.S. media) and they found that the boycott was astroturfed by one of our favorite right-wing string-pullers:
Tax filings obtained by the Guardian show how the rightwing dark money impresario Leonard Leo helped fuel the Bud Light boycott in response to ads featuring the transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney, an effort that generated threats against Mulvaney, violence against consumers and layoffs by Anheuser-Busch.
Uncovered by the watchdog group Accountable.US, the filings for 2022 show the Concord Fund, a group linked to Leo, gave $350,000 to Consumers Defense, an arm of Consumers’ Research, not long before that group played a central role in the Bud Light boycott.
Leo is a Catholic conservative activist widely known as the force behind the Federalist Society...
Consumers’ Research was formed in 1929 to champion consumers’ rights, but went largely dormant before being revived as a rightwing watchdog. It now claims to lead “the fight against ESG”, or environmental, social and governance policies, in corporate America. It issues “woke alerts” concerning companies it deems to be “putting progressive activists and their dangerous agendas ahead of customers”.
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I’m starting with Lighthouse Point IPA from Discretion Brewing (Soquel CA). It’s at the lighter end of the IPA range at 6.3% ABV, which I prefer, and it’s very fresh (canned July 9). Tastes great, I wish they’d said what hops are in it. After this I’ve got Pizza Port “Summer Moments” IPA, which bsegel recommended last week, and it’s fine stuff too. What are you drinking? Anyone brewing?