Opinion: Craft Beer Is In Monster Trouble – How Monster Beverage Corp.’s Acquisition of CANarchy Is Diluting The Industry

Among the Brewers Association’s Top 10 Craft Brewing Companies in 2023 was a new name, which seemingly slipped in through the window in the dead of night: Monster Brewing.

Monster Brewing Co. is an independent brewer which grew from humble roots and unwavering dedication to quality, community and the spirit of craft brewing. Or was that Oskar Blues? Maybe Cigar City? Deep Ellum? Perrin? Utah Brewers Cooperative (formerly Wasatch and Squatters)? The correct answer is all of the above, and the correct answer to which of the above traits is true about MBC is none of the above. Monster Brewing Company is, of course, an alcoholic beverage arm of Monster Beverage Corp; a sort of Franken-craft collective born as a result of small brewer purchase and consolidation which is diluting the craft beer industry into something worse than the stalest Icehouse.

This corporate Frankenstein began in 2015 as CANarchy Craft Brewery Collective, a snappy name devised by Fireman Capital Partners, a private equity firm led by Reebok’s longtime CEO, Paul Fireman. Aiming his hose of liquid capital to capitalize on liquid, money pumped in and the breweries under CANarchy rapidly expanded. Press at the time read “Fireman Capital Isn’t Disrupting Craft Beer, It’s Sustaining It,” touting the move as “disruptive,” presumably because these breweries were “Independent, together.” Stronger, better, faster. But still the same old craft.

“Beer fans would be remiss to write CANarchy off as another “evil” empire destined to squash creativity,” reads a 2018 article. It’s not here to minimize consumer choice, nor to flip beloved breweries like Boca Raton condos.” It’s here to disrupt the industry and stick it to the man, just like BrewDog.

From the same article: “FCP isn’t preparing to flip its shares in the short term. ‘[FCP] can hold a business for five, 10, 20 years,’ says Matt Fraser, CANarchy president and COO. ‘Everybody’s joined the collective because of the long-term hold strategy.’”

Well, if that’s true, guess the joke’s on them, since CANarchy was flipped for $330 million, once its brands were neatly packaged to appeal to a bigger fish – less than four years since that quote from Fraser.

Photo Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

A Monster Buys Another Name

The Brewers Association, which has long been the standard bearer for craft beer, now defines an American craft brewer as one that is small and independent. These terms have grown a little fuzzier each year, as “small” has been rejiggered to mean annual production of less than 6 million barrels, and “independent” to “less than 25 percent of the craft brewery is owned or controlled by a non-craft brewer.” Is 6 million small simply because a handful produce 10 million? Would America be considered independent if a foreign entity controlled fewer than 12 of our 50 states?

In truth, the gap between a brewery producing 100,000 barrels yearly and 1 million is quite wide, and if America somehow ceded just under a quarter of its land to an invader, it would be hard to call that the same America which was born in a tavern over beers.

In 2022, before it became Monster Brewing, the BA justified its classification this way: “CANarchy meets the Brewers Association’s craft brewer definition under the ownership of Monster Energy as presently constituted. In this instance, Monster is not a beverage alcohol industry member, so this new ownership structure does not affect CANarchy’s independence in regard to the beverage alcohol industry.”

Seems a bit convenient, no?

Unleash the Beast

The issue runs deeper than pure semantics. America’s spirit of independence is reflected in craft brewing. Or, it was. The meaning is getting cloudy. Aside from the brewers’ brands in its pocket, Monster has two flagship alcoholic beverage lines of its own, The Beast Unleashed™ and Nasty Beast Hard Tea™, which, as flavored malt beverages brewed by Monster Brewing Co., are craft beer in name.

“We are particularly proud that The Beast Unleashed was the best-selling new beer brand in 2023,” says Monster Beverage Corporation Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer Rodney Sacks.

This is an especially rich statement, considering that the entire “The Beast” lineup from Monster is full of hard seltzers and hard iced teas, with nary a craft beer in sight.

So what about these brands actually aligns with craft? And how does such positioning do anything more than suck dollar share and shelf space from local brewers who provide means for a community to get together and hash out life over a pint? It’s hard to imagine America’s Framers swilling The Beast Unleashed™ consensually. Maybe they wouldn’t have cared, simply because booze was booze. But ownership and ideals were a sticking point, and clearly defining one entity in relation to another is what made America officially America. 

Needless to say, we’re using arbitrary tangibles to let Monster Brewing Company call itself a craft brewer; the same kind of sly movement of numbers and letters which obfuscates who’s really behind the curtain. In the case of Monster, the man behind the curtain is The Coca-Cola Company, which has a 16.7% stake in Monster (about four states’ worth), and is second only to Pepsi and AB InBev in terms of the world’s largest beverage companies. At best, calling Monster a craft brewer is a disservice to the intangible ideals and spirit of what craft beer really is. At worst, it could be the foreshadowing of an ominous future for the industry. But first, a tale from the past.

Photo Courtesy Rock Art Brewery

A Monster Stirs: The Company’s Litigious First Foray Into Craft Beer

Monster’s first foray into the realm of craft beer is quite telling. In 2009, Morrisville, Vermont’s family-run Rock Art Brewery received an out of the blue “cease and desist” letter from Monster’s makers, then known as Hansen Beverage Company, demanding that Rock Art to stop selling its Vermonster beer, drop efforts to get a federal trademark for the name, and pay Hansen’s legal fees. Per a WCAX news article, “The letter says Monster has worked hard to establish its brand and Rock Art’s use of the name Vermonster ‘will undoubtedly create a likelihood of confusion and/or dilute the distinctive quality of Hansen’s Monster marks.’”

Owners Matt and Renee Nadeau were in shock, as there seemed to be little ground for such perfunctory action against their innocent 10th anniversary barleywine. They consulted several lawyers, who agreed Rock Art would win a legal battle over the name, but the issue was money. Legal fees started at $65,000, money the Nadeaus couldn’t spare. Lawyers advised the Nadeaus to “think about what they stand to lose if they go to court against a company reportedly pulling in $600 million dollars a year.”

Recognizing what Matt Nadeau called a “David and Goliath scenario,” the community rallied, boycotting sale and distribution of Monster, with one store even going so far as to remove its drink coolers with Monster branding.

When Nadeau called the lawyer representing Hansen Beverage Company to ask what the conflict was, given that Rock Art was not in the energy drink business, he was told that Hansen (Monster) wanted to get into the beer business.

To which Nadeau replied: “Well too bad, I’m already here!” He would ultimately send a response letter offering to stay out of the energy drink business if Hansen would drop its pursuit of his Vermonster beer. Weeks later, Monster relented, provided that “Vermonster doesn’t break into the energy drink market.” A serious concern.

The 10%, heavily malted Vermonster lives on, having scored one for the little guys. And Monster, having shown its hand, demonstrated its disdain for craft brewing prior to even entering the market.

“When I pledged allegiance to this country as a kid in grade school,” said Nadeau, “I don’t remember the end of it saying ‘and justice for all who have the deepest pockets.’”

Quality and Volume: What Goes Up Must Come Down

Deep pockets don’t make themselves. They come most readily by putting numbers before people, increasing speed and scale, and trimming every ounce of fat.

Among the baker’s dozen of Cigar City positions which were terminated after the merger was that of longtime head brewer Wayne Wambles, just short of his 16th anniversary with the company. Wambles, who had a hand in most of Cigar City’s most popular brews, was known to spend hours before and after shifts, carefully pulling each different tap, tasting and asking if his beer truly lived up to what he was trying to achieve. While those were surely technical standards, they may or may not have also included less tangible concerns, like whether or not the spirit of a certain style was accurately represented and honored.

Such concerns separate the artist and the technician, the art and the mechanical reproduction. Viewed through the eyes of a Monster, it’s simply fat and waste. Since his departure, Wambles has returned to his homebrewing roots, and is offering consulting to other breweries who might want to lend a touch of art to their craft.

Meanwhile, Monster will capitalize on selling beers which gained a reputation for quality under Wamble’s name. Production will be scaled, costs will be cut as needed and 98 percent of consumers will be none the wiser. After all, a brand name is static, yet all that is represented within it is dynamic, everchanging. The same product in name can become something totally different. And this is inevitably what happens to craft beer brands which are scaled up.

IPAs scaled up are often “replicated” through concentrated hop extracts, requiring less time and effort than use of traditional hops. Costs come down, production goes up, but somewhere along the way lose their je ne sais quoi, typically in body, mouthfeel, and aroma, all of which contribute to whether or not a beer is good or great.

Often as products are scaled, bulk grain is incorporated, with more chaff, or yeast is switched to a more “productive” strain. All of which can sap the life from a beer. Perhaps it is something more intangible, like whether or not a brewer who takes pride in every batch has been able to give it their loving seal of approval, rather than one which has only known the touch of chemists and gaze of sensors, like a childless mother. Whatever combination of factors, the change in quality becomes noticeable after a certain point. Regardless of quality control, you can taste intent in beer.

The Customer is Always Wronged

When the artisan spirit is stamped out, it is for the sake of increased profit. The product suffers, and the customer loses, and other artisans are squeezed off shelves or away from the highest ideal in order to compete. We drown in soulless beer.

Drinking a soulless beer puts us in an uncanny valley, where everything looks good, smells good, fresh and flavorful… but is missing something. It’s a six-pack of Stepford Wives, built to feel like the real thing, but hollow.

Resistance to AI art provides an analog. Aside from its conspicuous lack of soul, the argument  is that it relies on extraction of preexisting creativity. A dilution, prioritizing scale, quantity, expansion and rapidity. With a whimper, creative spirit is inverted and picked apart by scientific analysis and market researchers whose goal is to satisfy the bare minimum for the consumer, essentially fooling them into thinking less is more, while making more from less for the company. That’s a dark future for craft, an endless echo chamber of “growth” and “innovation”, two sleek ways of saying “more” and “better”, which are rooted in a desire to increase profits at the expense of all else. A race to the bottom.

Bottoms Up

The word “craft” can be bought and sold, but craft is more than a word. It’s an ideal, and the ideal exists beyond the reach of a pocketbook. That ideal can be upheld by all. It probably won’t be upheld by large brewers. It may be upheld by local craft brewers, but they rely on the public’s support. Ultimately, the future of craft is really in the hands of the drinkers. The more we understand, appreciate and support truly local craft beer, the better off we’ll be. We have the right to choose. Choose wisely. Or don’t. But don’t be surprised when Monster comes knocking.