information about the beer companies that dominate
about 95% of the market here in the US:
"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts, and beer."
- Abraham Lincoln
InBev:
Anheuser-Busch is one of the top 40 air polluters in the US, releasing over 2,200,000 lbs of pollutants into the sky last year alone. Historically AB has had a good, labor-friendly reputation, but unfortunately this has changed since its merger with InBev. At the time of this draft, AB has stopped payment on pensions for AB union widows, and is currently renegotiating union contracts with a 10% reduction in workforce expected. It is worth mentioning that Arizona Senator John McCain is a significant stock holder in AB. Also, AB subsidiary Sea World has had its license for capture and detainment of dolphins and orcas repeatedly revoked.
Anheuser-Busch brands:
Budweiser
Bud Light
Michelob
Busch
Rolling Rock
Natural Light/Ice
Bud Extra
Bare Knuckle Stout
Ascent 54 Shock Top
Skipjack Amber Lager
Wild Blue
Sun Dog
Beach Bum Blonde
Jack's Pumpkin Spice
Winter's Bourbon 180 Energy
Stone Mill Pale
Wild Hop Lager
Bacardi Silver
Tequiza
Tilt
ZiegenBock
Redbridge
O'Doul's Landshark Lager
Hurricane
King Cobra
Partial Ownership:
Red Hook
Widmer Bros
Corona
Victoria
Modelo
InBev, the largest brewer in the world, has frequently been accused of buying the rights to a "premium" beer and lowering both quality control standards and wages at newly acquired companies. For example, wages at the Montenegro brewing facility were cut from a monthly average of €321 down to €87, on top of eliminating nearly half of the positions at the factory after breaking three strikes. InBev later settled with unions regarding this and other disputes but refused to honor the agreements once work resumed. InBev has also been fined along with Heineken for price fixing in the European market.
Listing of InBev Brands:
InBev Brands:
Absolut Cut
Alexander Keith's
Andes
Antarctica
Apatinska
pivara
Aqua Fratelli
Vita
AstikA
Baisha
BagBier
Bass
Baviera
Beck's
Belle-Vue
Bergenbier
Boddingtons
Bohemia
Borsodi
Boomerang Brahma
Breda
Cafri
Caracu
Cass
Chernihivske
Diebels
Diekirch
Dimix
Dommelsch
Double Deer
Dutch Gold
Eiken Artois
Franziskaner
Weissbier
Gilde Ratskeller
Guaraná
Antarctica
Guaraná Brahma
GuoGuang Haacke-Beck
Hasseröder
Hertog Jan
Hoegaarden
Hougaerdse Das
Jinlin
Jinlongquan
Julius
Jupiler
KK
Kamenitza
Klinskoye
Kokanee
La Bécasse
Labatt
Lakeport
Leffe
Liber
Löwenbräu
Marathon Mousel
Pivara
Trebjesa
Noroc
OB
Oranjeboom
Original
Peeterman
Artois
Permskoye
Gubernskoye
Piedboeuf
Quilmes
Red Shiliang
Rifey
Rohan
Safir
Santai
Sedrin
Sibirskaya Korona
Skol
Spaten
St. Pauli Girl
Staropramen
Stella Artois
Sukita
Taller
Tennent's
Tinkov
Tolstiak
Vieux Temps
Wolters
Whitbread
Yali
Yantar
Zagrebacka pivovara
Zizhulin
Zhujiang
Pabst Brewing Company:
Pabst is not actually a brewing company at all. It is a marketing front that contracts all of its brewing out to other companies, with around 85% of the work done by MillerCoors. Pabst is owned by the S&P Corp, which is in turn owned by the The Kalmanovitz Charitable Foundation. This trust, which reports Pabst stock value at roughly 1-5% of its actual worth, is a tax shell which violates US law in both its ownership structure and lack of mandatory charitable giving. It is run by Jesuit priest John LoSchiavo, chancellor of the private University of San Francisco, which is one of the only benefactors of the foundation. The trust is named for Paul Kalmanovitz, who throughout his career would buy up breweries, shut them down, and contract the brewing out with lowered quality standards. Breweries that had been taken over by Kalmanovitz were known to fly the American flag inverted and at half staff upon the news of a buyout. In 1981 Falstaff employees even chipped in to buy Kalmanovitz a microwave as a gift, hoping it would fatally disrupt his pacemaker.
Pabst Brands:
Ballantine Ale
Blatz
Champale
Colt 45
Country Club
Jacob Best
Lone Star McSorley's
National Bohemian
Old Milwaukee
Old Style
Olympia
Pabst Blue Ribbon
Pearl
Piel's Rainier Lager
Schaefer
Schlitz
Schmidt's
Special Export
St. Ides
Stag
Stroh's
MillerCoors (SAB Miller, MolsonCoors):
Miller has a relatively good labor track record compared to the rest of its corporate family; this has declined since its sale from Philip Morris to South African Breweries. All the same just as past profits flowed directly into Uncle Phil's wallet, they still end up there due to a 36% stake in shares. Miller is also a major polluter, parroting accolades of sustainability of its Georgia brewery, yet expelling more tons of pollutants than the coal-fired power plant in the same Doughearty County area.
SAB Miller Brands:
Aguila
Blue Moon
Castle Lager
Club Colombia
Coors
Coors Light
Dreher Classic Gambrinus
Leinenkugel's
Grolsch
Haywards 5000
Miller Genuine Draft
Miller Lite
Peroni Pilsner Urquell
Snow
St Louis
Tyskie
Steel Reserve
Sharp's
Mickey's Olde English 800
Milwaukee's Best
Hamm's
Icehouse
Red Dog
SouthPaw
Kozel
Coors, where to begin? Just in the last 50 years, Coors has been one of the worst enemies to organized labor this country has seen. Coors has not only killed more unions than you have fingers and toes, poor conditions have killed workers in its factories. Joseph Coors gave Oliver North $65,000 to purchase an airplane for right-wing Nicaraguan terrorist contras, and has helped raise millions more to fund their cause. The Coors family has helped found and continue to fund the Heritage Foundation, the Free Congress Foundation, and the Council for National Policy. These are ultra-right-wing DC think tanks who's causes include: Opposing the Civil Rights Act, anti-homosexuality legislation, abstinence only education, anti-labor legislation and education, opposing nuclear disarmament, anti-Islam policies and propaganda, anti-immigration legislation and education, direct payment to scientists for anti-climate change research, anti-minimum wage laws, and propaganda touting the safety of pesticides. In addition to these policies, these groups employ KKK financier Richard Shoff, eugenics activist and holocaust denier Roger Pearson, as well as a great many other evangelical and nationalist socialist figures. Joseph's older brother William once told a group of minority businessmen "you will find out that probably the greatest favor that anybody ever did you was to drag your ancestors over here in chains against their will, and I mean it." Additionally, Coors subsidiary ACX Technologies is a defense department supplier, making ceramics for missiles and other weapons. Since absorbing Molson, it has imposed its anti-labor policies on that subsidiary.
MolsonCoors Brands:
Coors
Carling Black Label
Blue Moon Killian's
Keystone
Carling Molson
Rickard's
Creemore Springs
Diageo:
Diageo, owner of Guinness, Smirnoff, Red Stripe, and many others was recently cited by the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency as the largest polluter in the country. It has also been cited for dumping effluent and broken glass into Lake Victoria, Uganda. Diageo has also engaged in a deceptive public relations campaign in Africa that includes the funding a feature length movie, Critical Assignment. This film credits the fictional Guinness advertising creation Michael Power (actually actor Cleveland Mitchell) as a real actor, spouting his catchphrase "Guinness brings out the Power in you!"
Diageo Brands:
Guinness
Smithwick's
Red Stripe Harp
Kilkenny
Satzenbrau Senator Keg
Smirnoff Ice
Other Concerns
Environmental Impact: Many beer corporations have been in the news with sustainability developments, but the motivation behind these is generally profit driven, or simply coming in line with regulations they had been ignoring for years. Smaller breweries such as Brooklyn and New Belgium are completely powered by wind turbines, and other craft brewers have incorporated creative ways to lessen the impact they have on the environment, such as Great Lakes Brewing using biodiesel and vegetable oil to fuel delivery trucks. The actual brewing process only takes of 3-10% of the total energy used in to make a beer, and over 50% of the total energy expenditure is in shipping and refrigeration. So those looking to mitigate environmental impact should take to drinking as locally as possible, and avoid retailers with inefficient open-air coolers. Additionally, the farming practices going into certified organic brew greatly diminish the upstream environmental impact and total energy use of a beer.
Genetic Modification: You would be hard pressed to find a beer brewed on a large scale that does not contain GMO ingredients in some fashion. Most high quantity, low quality brewers use conventional corn starch as part of the wort or base for fermentation, including the recipes for namesake Miller, Pabst, Anheuser–Busch, and Coors beers. Conventional rice is used, and in fact, Anheuser–Busch is the largest consumer of rice in the US. In 2007 experimental genetically engineered rice (Bayer LL601) not yet approved for human consumption was found in AB samples. Even for those brewers not using GM corn and rice, the practice of using GM enzymes in the fermentation process is common among larger brewers. These enzymes can be engineered to be more heat resistant, or are produced by GM bacteria to be added to the wort to convert rice and corn starches to sugar because they are not naturally available in high enough levels in those grains.
Animal Ingredients: Isinglass is a is a protein obtained from the swim bladders of fish that is used to filter yeast from beer. Although it is present in only trace amounts in the final product, it is considered to render a beer non-vegetarian. Here is a list of popular beers that utilize isinglass:
Guinness
Carling Black Label
Red Stripe Fosters
Newcastle
Murphy's Stout Bass
Beamish
Boddington's Old Speckled Hen
Stella Artois
Tetley's
Sexism: It is no secret that corporate beer advertising contains some of the most sexist imagery in our culture. If you feel that this is fair to your Sisters, then please, support these companies.
Okay, anything else? There are around 1,500 breweries in the United States, and while the brewers listed here account for 95% of sales, the multitude of others generally produce great beer at a very different level of social and environmental impact. Try biking on down to a local place where you can actually talk to the people that work there, or searching the news for articles about beer companies that are addressing issues that are important to you. Believe me, they are out there, and you will be surprised!
(I did not compile this information, so don't give me credit. I'm simply spreading the word. You should too by reposting this in your blog and bulletin. Geeheeb from the Profane Existence message boards put this all together, and if you'd like to have this in printable form, check it out at his website: http://kitchel.net/beer/)
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