Beavertown’s Wicked Weed moment

What’s different this time? When Heineken bought into London’s Brixton brewery last year, the usually vocal commentariat kept quiet. After London’s craft brewer Beavertown announced the sale of a minority stake to Heineken on 21 June 2018, all hell broke loose. Well, not quite. But many breweries and fans took to the internet to voice their disappointment. In fact, hours after the deal was announced, Manchester’s craft brewer Cloudwater wrote on Twitter that it will not be attending the annual Beavertown Extravaganza event to be held on 7 and 8 September 2018 in London.

Is Beavertown having its own Wicked Weed moment? In May 2017, when the US craft brewer Wicked Weed from Asheville was sold to AB-InBev, so many breweries pulled out of its sour beer invitational that Wicked Weed was forced to cancel it.

Several other craft brewers have since said they would boycott the Beavertown Extravaganza, including BrewDog, but the event seems to go ahead regardless.

However, plenty of visitors with tickets to the event were unhappy with their decision and also took to the internet to express their disappointment.

In response to the initial backlash from ticket-holders, Cloudwater wrote on Twitter: “If we’d known then what we know now, we wouldn’t have signed up for this year in the first place.”