Beer feud in Shiner as brewers battle in war for Shiner Bock's niche corner of craft beer
A Houston beer brand. The worlds largest brewer. Texas best-known craft brewer.
Add some fighting words and you have a marketing clash that is taking on overtones of the Texas Revolution.
The battlefield is Shiner, the home of Shiner Bock, where signs at a recent music festival blared, rather indiscreetly, Theres a new Bock in town. Billboards around the tiny town (pop. 2,171) also showed up to promote Crawford Bock, a beer launched by Karbach Brewing, a once-independent Houston brewer now owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev, or ABInBev.
To the Spoetzl Brewery, the maker of Shiner Bock, and local craft beer connoisseurs, the advertisements were a direct attack on their home turf and the Texas craft brewing community at large. Spoetzl last week moved to rally its supporters with a reminder of another fight that pitted Texans against a powerful foe, publishing an open letter in the local newspaper that recalled the Battle of Gonzales, the opening skirmish of the Texas Revolution where a famous flag in the war for independence from Mexico was flown.
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