Molson Coors chairman, Pete Coors is reportedly not happy about comments made by the Brewers Association about Big Beer at the Craft Brewers Conference (CBC) last week.
In a response to the BA, which held the 35th annual CBC in Nashville last week, Coors penned a letter that calls out the BA’s attacks on large brewing companies. The letter has been published by Beer Business Daily.
Coors first commends the BA on the CBC turnout—the largest yet, at nearly 14,000 attendees from all walks of the beer industry—and then turns his attention to the “vitriol” expressed in the pages of the BA’s industry publication, the New Brewer, to which Coors is a subscriber, and the comments made by BA chairman Eric Wallace and president Bob Pease “toward the large, non-independent brewers” during the CBC’s general session.
In the open letter, Coors writes, “The leadership of the Brewers Association does a great disservice to the entire beer value chain by attempting to pit one part of the industry against another.”
He adds that the BA’s stance is “insulting” to those that don’t meet the “craft brewer” definition, and that “[t]his approach prioritizes insults and division over unity” for beer, and that the BA is undermining its credibility by pitting beer against beer. “That is a slippery slope that does not end well for our industry,” he continues.
The letter concludes, “Keep your independent seal, your pride and your zeal for brewing, but let’s be united as an industry. There are other enemies we all must fight together.”
Read the full letter here.
