When Does Craft Beer No Longer Independent?

I'm sure you've heard by now the merger of Gordon Biersch and Rock Bottom breweries. (If you haven't you can read about it here.) I've never been a fan of "franchise" brewpubs and this news makes me never want to even come close to entering any of these places.

For the record, the new entity will be called CraftWorks and will include the Gordon Biersch, Rock Bottom and Old Chicago brewpubs. There's going to be something like 200 locations, 12,000 employees and 17 different "brands." To me, it sounds like nothing but opportunism and a chance to cash in on the craft beer movement. If you carefully read the press release, it is liberally sprinkled with those words: craft, made-from-scratch, finest craft beer. Basically, what I'm seeing is that we are getting another type of Bennigans or Applebees on our hands: a place to get Irish nachos or chicken fingers with some watered down version of a cherry tart wheat beer.

As someone that works in marketing and the corporate environment, the press release also shows those telltale marks of leverage, diverse solutions for complex challenges and all the other jargon meant to appease investors, especially Centerbridge, the entity that is putting this all together. It is trying to diversify its position by entering the casual dining and fine dining white tablecloth establishments.

I'm not sure where this will leave everything or what it portends for the future. What I'm guessing is that the pulling together will increase advertisement of these places. Because genuine craft beer is such a small percentage of the overall market, I would say that this merger will siphon more sales away from the larger breweries. It also might provide a good stepping stone for those that are looking to expand their beer pallet. Still, there seems something very corporate about the whole deal, which might continue to dilute the whole craft beer movement (similar to green washing for eco-products; maybe we can call it craftwashing or localsizing or something).

Looking at the menu of the establishments, it looks like a standard suburban bar and grille: lots of fried food with servers wearing flair. Interesting enough there isn't an Old Chicago location in Chicago, and I can't really see anything it has to do with Chicago at all. The beers at Gordon Biersch seem pedestrian. Time will tell.

Visit the CraftWorks site here.