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Beavertown’s announcement last week that they had sold a minority interest in their company to Heineken led to a flood of social media commentary much of it less than positive.
One of the first to react was Manchester’s Cloudwater Brew Co. who wrote on Twitter that the team was planning to boycott Beavertown’s upcoming festival.
And now Cloudwater, ranked as one of the world’s top craft breweries in Ratebeer’s annual survey of its users, is facing its own backlash from fans disappointed by the brewery’s quick decision to pull out of the Beavertown Extravaganza.
I’m personally very disappointed with the breweries pulling out,” said video blogger HopZine. “The only people you are actually effecting are the people that bought tickets, booked trains and hotels like myself.”
To explain their actions and perhaps to soften its criticism of Logan Plant and Beavertown’s decision to enter into a deal with Heineken, Cloudwater published a post on their website on June 25th entitled Tough Calls And The Bigger Picture, which started with an apology…
“We’re all deeply sorry that we withdrew from Beavertown’s Extravaganza….If we had known early this year that Beavertown was working on a minority sale to Heineken, the world’s second biggest beer company behind AB InBev, we’d have pulled out months ago.”
“It is a source of deep frustration that leaves us feeling a little used that around the time tickets were released for sale, a deal was likely already being drawn up with Heineken.”
In the post Cloudwater appeared to both soften its criticism of Beavertown (or at least throw the London-based brewery a bone) and harden it its criticism of Heineken citing reports of sexual abuse and poor working conditions for the brewery’s overseas staff.
“Not all bigger breweries are the same, and not all breweries that seek corporate investment do so at the expense of their wider independence.
Some big breweries appear to operate with the principles we hold dear in modern beer, regardless of their age, reach, or size, whilst other big breweries throw their weight around and engage in tactics behind the scenes against modern breweries’ values and existence.”
And a Heineken spokesperson responded to the Drinks Business calling attention to what they saw as two major discrepancies in Cloudwater’s post…
“1) as you know last week Heineken took a minority stake in Beavertown supporting them in realizing their dreams and full potential,” it said. “Following this transaction, Beavertown is still an independent brewer, 100% focused on bringing great beers to U.K. consumers.
“2) In its statement Cloudwater is referring to various allegations made in a recent Dutch book on Heineken’s business in Africa. The situation in Africa is much more nuanced than the writer of the book wants to make you believe.
“When you operate in 24 countries in Africa, and you have been active on the continent for over 100 years, you face challenges from time to time.
“Most important for us is that if we make mistakes, we correct them, learn from them and prevent them from happening in the future. We are very much focused on that, in the business (locally and at head office) and in dialogue with our stakeholders.”
