The Story Behind Breweries & Their Relationships With Bars
A bar promotes the fact it has several different beers – craft beers – on tap. You go in and sure enough, there’s a whole wall lined with tap handles.
But what you see may be one great deception.
That’s because the bar may be holding back on several other craft beer choices due to politics or policies. With major beer makers now buying and/or distributing craft breweries, the bar may be only making available selections from a single big-boy brewery.
The bar could be a “Heineken bar” that has only beers produced or distributed in the Heineken family. Same for Coors or InBev A-B. This means the consumer could be shut out with what are actually very limited choices. Sure all the taps look like there’a s lot of variety but in reality your choices are being limited by agreements bars have with the big breweries. .
In fact, PubClub.com has been to many places where we didn’t like any of the beers of 20 or more taps and when we inquired about a particular brand we do like, was told – very flatly like, well, a flat beer – “we don’t carry any of their beers.”
Then there is also the fact that some craft beer producers and small local breweries may not have the money to pay to be in a particular bar. Yes, beer companies pay to be poured. Some higher-end spots – nice lounges with “craft” cocktails that brag about their extensive beer selection which are popping up across America like bottle caps at a tailgate party – can charge a premium. So the little guys are often left out of the most popular places.
Of course, the bars will never tell you this – they want you to believe they are providing a great variety of beers for their customers. In reality, it’s their dirty little secret they don’t want you to know.
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