{"id":26817,"date":"2025-04-13T15:51:48","date_gmt":"2025-04-13T03:51:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/?p=26817"},"modified":"2025-04-14T14:39:33","modified_gmt":"2025-04-14T02:39:33","slug":"that-word-independence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2025\/04\/13\/that-word-independence\/","title":{"rendered":"Independence \u2014 “…I do not think it means what you think it means”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>
“You keep using that word…”<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

‘Independent’ remains the adjective of choice in promoting and organising the many Australian breweries that might otherwise be grouped under ‘craft’ or (in earlier times) ‘micro’. But companies who persist in waving it around as they take part in the recent string of mergers, consolidations, and various other entanglements are straining the word to breaking point. It’s too much like someone insisting “being single is really important to me, that’s why I married another bachelor!”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Wayward<\/a>
Three logos, some unresolved tension<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The latest was just the other day, when Sydney breweries Akasha & Wayward “joined forces”<\/a> \u2014 their announcement, among other oddities,<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> peppered with the i-word from the opening sentence to its final quote. We’re told it’ll make them stronger “without compromising the independence and quality that have earned both breweries loyal followings” and that they “have shared a vision for what independent Sydney craft beer can be.” The arrangement also bundles in the Local Drinks Collective, a looser partnership which Wayward had already formed with another<\/em> Sydney brewery, Batch \u2014 which was hailed at the time<\/a> as “a new phase in the evolution of Australian independent brewing” and “a sustainable model for independent beer to truly stay independent.” Media releases for both deals explicitly contemplate adding more “independent breweries” to the mix, and the new Akasha-Wayward entity is actively soliciting outside investment to the tune of $1.5M.<\/p>\n

The parties involved in these arrangements don’t loudly proclaim such apparent contradictions every time; other consolidations have made the news in more sober phrasing. But this certainly isn’t the first. Earlier this year, Hawkers and White Bay merged to form Social Drinks Group<\/a>, taking on an extra $1.5M of their own and appointing a former Heineken executive as CEO. That was celebrated (by them, at least) as “100 percent independent” and they also said they were “already talking to other potential partners” but only interested in those who were themselves “independent and artisanal craft.” And, though the deal later fell through<\/a>, in late 2022 when Stomping Ground spoke of their acquisition by Good Drinks<\/a> (itself built from a previous<\/em> buyout<\/a>), they said “the fact that they were an independent brand was also a bonus, […] a nice cherry on the cake.”<\/p>\n

If all of this isn’t just complete nonsense, we’re left with an extremely impoverished sense of ‘that word’ which merely means independent of<\/em> the “big breweries” \u2014 Lion and CUB, in the Australian context.<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> This is especially the case if you reflect on the fact that millions of dollars of investment will always come with a lot<\/em> of strings, whoever is holding them and whatever their terms \u2014 just think how much of a self-imposed burden BrewDog’s private equity deal has turned out to be<\/a>. You lose a lot of your practical independence when people lend you a bunch of money.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/a>
CUB’s self-told origin story<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The ridiculous irony is that this is just history repeating.<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span> CUB stands for “Carlton & United Breweries” because it was formed a hundred years ago by several smaller operations joining up; their modern retelling of it cites economic necessity in terms familiar to any of these consolidation stories. These new entities are expansionist and ambitious, so how big will be too big, how many constituent parts are too many? At what point do they feel awkward waving the “independence” flag around \u2014 or should the rest of us just refuse to dignify their claim by repeating it? When \u2014 and this is me genuinely asking<\/em> \u2014 does someone with an indie purchasing preference<\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span> mentally file these partnerships in a different category? My dark suspicion is that a lot<\/em> of anti-big-brewery sentiment is actually just nationalism reacting against their foreign parent companies anyway, and so is impervious to these concerns \u2014 there’s a distinct slippage in the rhetoric around all this, even from the Independent Brewers Association itself, who recently announced a campaign focused on the interests of “Australian owned” beer.<\/a><\/p>\n

I’ve written before about the supposed value of “independence”<\/a> and common reactions to big-brewery buyouts<\/a> and my firm belief is that ownership is one thing and behaviour is something else entirely; I care\u00a0much<\/em> more about the latter, and it doesn’t correlate very strongly at all with the former. If these new conglomerates pursue ‘vertical’ integration with more hospitality venues (as some are), they’ll gradually morph into something like a British pubco with a string of tied houses, explicitly or just in practice. Even without that, the economies of scale they’re obviously seeking will distort their local markets to the point a small, upstart operator might not care to distinguish or see much difference between their multinational competitors and their multi-headed pseudo-indie ones.<\/p>\n

And it’s worth noting \u2014 as Crafty Pint<\/em> was careful to, in its coverage of the news<\/a> \u2014 that Wayward<\/a> and Akasha<\/a> both went through voluntary administration last year, shrugging off the vast majority of about $2M in debts each<\/em>,<\/span>5<\/sup><\/a><\/span> and Akasha had previously raised $1.7M in crowdfunding money, much of it now lost in an ill-fated expansion<\/a> out to nearby Newcastle. Their founders aren’t in a great<\/em> position to hold forth on sustainable business models,<\/span>6<\/sup><\/a><\/span> and these things should sit awkwardly with folks who base their indie advocacy in (fair) criticisms of multinationals for dodging tax and offshoring profit \u2014 those VAs used by independent breweries so frequently lately are perfectly legal, but inescapably involve the public losing chunks of money and local suppliers getting burned.<\/p>\n

All of this complicates the idea of “independence” as something worth supporting without adding a whole raft of caveats. I don’t have a better<\/em> unifying principle to offer: “craft” turned out to be a dead end<\/a>, “micro” was inherently limited \u2014 and “local” is fraught if you ever plan to distribute beyond a small radius. I just want to encourage more suspicion of shallow sloganeering.<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘Independent’ remains the adjective of choice in promoting and organising the many Australian breweries that might otherwise be grouped under ‘craft’ or (in earlier times) ‘micro’. But companies who persist in waving it around as they take part in the recent string of mergers, consolidations, and various other entanglements are straining the word to breaking … Continue reading Independence \u2014 “…I do not think it means what you think it means”<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[55,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interesting-finds","category-blahblah"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1864,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2011\/02\/28\/moa-%e2%80%98five-hop-winter-ale%e2%80%99\/","url_meta":{"origin":26817,"position":0},"title":"Moa \u2018Five Hop Winter Ale\u2019","author":"Phil","date":"February 28, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I've railed about it before, but Moa's appalling brandwank annoys me sufficiently that it still buzzes in my brain as I enjoy something like this, one of their actually-rather-lovely offerings. Praise first, praise first; stifle the rant for a moment. \u20185 Hop\u2019 is a delicious E.S.B., richly flavoured and deftly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Moa '5 Hop'","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Moa-5-Hop-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":665,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2009\/01\/13\/brewdog-the-physics\/","url_meta":{"origin":26817,"position":1},"title":"BrewDog ‘The Physics’","author":"Phil","date":"January 13, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"A wonderful little amber ale with a very nice silky and enduring froth on top -- and so perfectly amber that it'd make for a good colour chart entry, or something to point to if someone doesn't know what the word means. 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