A big part of The Full Pint’s ethos over the last decade was to champion for the underdog over the well-funded, mega corporation-owned breweries. This scenario or story has been told since the beginning of time pointing back to David and Goliath. While we still appreciate locally-owned, small-batch, excellently-made beer, we’ve sadly seen how the sausage is made or in this case, the beer is made, and have found that not all of our favorite, darling small businesses have been A) a well-run business and B) a place that treats their employees with dignity and respect. The pandemic, the great resignation and the brewery misconduct reckoning have uncovered that many of our favorite small, independently owned breweries are just getting by and that because of that, they aren’t all roses when it comes to workplace environments. What seemed like following amazing indy rockstars began feeling a bit gross as more and more stories became public and stories that have still have lived in whispers and rumors. To the point, I still have love and respect for many small, independent breweries, I just don’t view them with rose colored lenses and don’t assume that small equals good and big equals bad. When news broke recently of Saint Archer coming to an end after a quick sellout to MillerCoors and CANarchy selling to Monster, I had a very different emotional reaction than I would have years ago when I was drawing a much harder line against craft and non-craft beer.
Saint Archer Brewery
Saint Archer Brewery was born in the golden era of craft brewery acquisitions. Right around the time Ballast Point Brewing sold to Constellation Brands for a cool $1B, Saint Archer Brewery launched and quickly flipped to an eager buyer in MillerCoors, who was looking to add some craft and coolness to their lineup. San Diego being a grassroots craft beer industry town did not take kindly to big beer marking their territory like that, and made their feelings be known to Saint Archer, 10 Barrel Brewing and the then Constellation Brands-owned Ballast Point that they weren’t “craft.”
LISTEN: PODCAST EP 141 – CHANGING FRIEND’S LIVES – JOSH LANDAN (Original Founder of Saint Archer)
Taking away the politics and business talk for a second, Saint Archer made very good beer. For the money they invested, there’s no reason why they should have had bad beer. They tapped on many industry veterans to build their impressive brewhouse and relied on the pedigree of Pizza Port Brewing alumni and other classically trained brewing professionals to build and execute a state-of-the-art brewery. Pre-acquisition, I didn’t have a bad drop of Saint Archer beer. Post-acquisition, when I was a craft bible thumping liberal, the beer remained excellent. It was also nice that when going to a stadium or any venue with draft beer, that instead of having the usual Bud/Miller/Modelo option, that I would be able…
