Barrel-Aged Stout and Selling Out
Goose Island, Anheuser-Busch and how Craft beer became big business
Barrel-Aged Stout and Selling Out tells the story of Goose Island Beer Co., from its 1988 founding as a scrappy Chicago upstart to its 1990s growing pains to its ascension through the early 2000s as one of the nation’s great breweries, landing at the moment everything changed — its 2011 sale to the world’s largest beer company, Anheuser-Busch InBev.
The tale begins as a story of vision and endurance as Goose Island founder John Hall and his brewmaster son, Greg, sought to change attitudes about what American beer drinking could be. With an array of pioneering beers and practices, Goose Island did just that.
Twenty years later, with the idea of drinking fresh, local craft beer fixed firmly in the nation’s fabric, the world’s largest beer company knew it had to get involved. It did just that, acquiring Goose Island for $38.8 million in a deal that stunned the beer industry.
Selling to a $125 billion conglomerate didn’t come without its detractors for Goose Island. It also came with ample cries of sell out!
Goose Island turned out to be only a start for Anheuser-Busch InBev, which began a buying spree that netted more than a dozen craft breweries in every region of the nation, fracturing alliances and upending a once-chummy and collegial industry.
Craft beer, just like Goose Island, became a story not only of innovation, growth and wild success, but the pains that accompany becoming big business.
The product of more than six years of research and interviews, Barrel-Aged Stout and Selling Out: Goose Island, Anheuser-Busch and How Craft Beer Became Big Business has received voluminous praise from critics and readers alike as a story of beer and business, honored by the North American Guild of Beer Writers in 2019 as the year’s best book.
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