Growing List of National Breweries Rescind RSVP to Wicked Weed Funkatorium Invitational

It has been a rough twenty four hours for the craft beer industry, as droves of national brewers have begun voicing their responses to Wicked Weed Brewing’s acquisition by Anheuser-Busch InBev. The first and perhaps most high profile response came from Jester King Brewing’s Jeffrey Stuffings who shared a heartfelt, but definitive statement on the Austin brewery’s policy toward future collaborations and sales of Wicked Weed products.

In the last 24 hours a majority of responding brewers have followed in Stuffings’ message, expressing an outpour of respect, support and empathy for the employees of Wicked Weed while coming out in opposition of the decision to sell to ABI based upon principal.

A few notable statements have been made by the likes of The Rare Barrel, Sierra Nevada and Black Project. While others simply declined or rescinded their participation in July’s Wicked Weed Funkatorium Invitation. The following are but a few collections of statements

The Rare Barrel’s Response:

This has been an awkward and emotional last 24 hours for us.

Over the years, we’ve become good friends with the Wicked Weed crew. We’ve grown to really respect the people and their beers. We’ve shared many beers together, made a beer together, are in the process of making another beer together, enjoyed events around the country, and hosted Wicked Weed events at our barrel house. We’ve shared some really good times together over the last couple of years.

It’s about values.

Yesterday, Wicked Weed announced that they are selling their brewery to the megabrewery AB InBev (Budweiser, Shock Top). Here at The Rare Barrel, we’ve made a decision not to serve, collaborate with, or affiliate with AB InBev because our values do not align with theirs.

In order to stay true to our values, we’re pulling out of the second part of our collaboration, will not be attending their festivals, and will not be able to serve their beer in our Tasting Room anymore.

While our values diverge and we part ways, we wish the people at Wicked Weed all the best.

Modern Time’s Response (Link to Jaco McKean’s speech can be found here):

Sierra Nevada’s subtle jab at remaining independent.

Black Project Spontaneous & Wild Ales Response (Full post can be found here)

Below is the growing list of breweries who have respectfully declined or rescinded their RSVPs to the 2017 Wicked Weed Funkatorium Invitational. Special credit to the good folks at Tenemu who first broke an initial list before we could fully compile our own research prior to this post going live.