ELIAS CLURE, REPORTER: Game day at the local pub. Footy season is boom time for the pint.VOX POP 2: Stone and Wood – just a nice summer ale for a nice sunny day.ELIAS CLURE: But unlike tonight’s game, competition in the beer industry is as lopsided as it’s ever been.
Asahi – which in 2020 bought Australian beer giant CUB which owns a number of separate beverage brands.MAZEN HAJJAR: I think as 26 million Australians we don’t need to be boxed into seven or eight different brands.ELIAS CLURE: While Australia spent decades with just a few mass-produced beers like VB and Tooheys.TIM FISHWYCK, BEER INDUSTRY VETERAN: It used to be that you would drink what your dad drank, or you just drink the same beer every day, every year.
KYLIE LETHBRIDGE: The two major breweries were watching that and looking that at the fact that those beers were selling better, you were seeing them more, you were seeing them in fridges, you were seeing them on taps and again, if you can’t compete and you have the power to acquire, that’s what happened and it happened over a period of time where all the major largest craft brewers in the market were purchased.
According to the independent brewers, Asahi and Kirin have mass distribution power and can send salespeople to literally every pub in Australia. NICK ALLARDICE: I use cider as an example. We used to use, in my other venues, we used to use Coldstream Cider for years and years and years. Great, locally produced, locally owned. I can’t have it in here. They would love to be in here. I know the product would work in here, but the reality is, due to my contract, I can't have it in here.