Wicked Weed cancels its annual funky beer festival
Who would have thought that craft brewers would react to the sale of Wicked Weed to AB-InBev in early May with anger, rather than quiet resignation? Wicked Weed is AB-InBev’s tenth acquisition in the US, not its first.
However, this time the repercussions were significant. Two craft breweries publically stepped back from scheduled collaborations while the local brewers’ guild immediately suspended its membership.
Not enough, the outcry forced Wicked Weed to cancel its annual Funkatorium, a sour beer fest, at least for its scheduled date (8 July 2017) and its current form.
Originally launched in 2014, the Funkatorium found its footing by focussing on the less common styles of sour and wild beers. Hosted by Wicked Weed in its home town Asheville, it helped bring out breweries from across the country excited to show off their funky (read sour) creations.
This year’s Funkatorium was scheduled to feature over 70 breweries (admission at USD 100 per person) when Wicked Weed announced on 3 May 2017 that it had been acquired by AB-InBev. By all accounts, almost no one had seen this coming.
Part of the fallout was that breweries immediately began backing out of the festival. By 9 May, nearly 50 breweries had confirmed they would no longer attend.
The same day, Wicked Weed felt compelled to cancel the event, effectively acquiescing to being ostracized from the community, as one commentator put it. Still, Wicked Weed said the festival will continue in some form, in part because the brewery doesn’t want to let down the charity it supports.
“We will evolve the Funkatorium Invitational and host a reimagined festival to raise money for Eblen’s cause on 26 August 2017”, Wicked Weed said.
Why the sale of Wicked Weed has had such a fall-out is hard to fathom. After all, other AB-InBev-owned craft breweries continue to hold their beer festivals. Only last month, New York’s Blue Point, which was bought by AB-InBev in 2014, held its 14th Annual Cask Fest, featuring over 60 breweries.
Plenty of brewers will probably refuse to attend this event as well but others had no such objections.
