Shiner Beer is telling its rival, Houston-based Karbach Brewing Co., to “Come and Take It."
The Shiner brewery released an open letter in The Shiner Gazette’s Thursday print edition, taking aim at the “huge company with deep pockets" that sponsored the Shiner Music Festival on Oct. 19.
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"The big guys have come after us before,” Julie Boehm, procurement and logistics manager for Shiner, told KSAT TV.
Boehm said Shiner passed as sponsor for the fall music festival because the sponsorship level was for a larger-scale beer company with “unlimited funds.”
Instead, Karbach Brewing Co., purchased by giant Anheuser-Busch in 2016, sponsored the event — a partnership Karbach was “happy” to agree to, brand manager David Graham said.
“I got a call from Del Papa Distributing in Shiner, TX a few months back and they asked if we’d partner on their sponsorship of the Shiner Lions Club’s Shiner Music Fest," Graham said. “Shiner Music Fest has a rich history in the area, and one that is important to the community so we were happy to sign on and support the event with Crawford Bock for the occasion.”
Del Papa marketing director Jeffrey Wheeler said Shiner Beer’s absence gave them the green light to “sponsor the event with dollars and merchandising as we do for many events across our 17 county footprint.”
The Texas City-based company lists Anheuser-Busch beers, such as Budweiser, Bud Light and Michelob Ultra, among the “mainstays” that it distributes.
According to the letter, which was posted on Facebook, Shiner believed it was a way for Anheuser-Busch to try to “force its way into our town.”
“It is not the Shiner Bock that’s brewed here in Shiner at the K. Spoetzl Brewery,” the 110-year-old brewery stated in the letter. “A-B does not want you to know that Karbach is produced at the formerly craft Karbach brewery and at its large, low-cost A-B plant in Houston.”
Crawford Bock, a bock in the Karbach family, was featured on three billboards touting the festival around town. The brand’s Love Street Blonde and Hopadillo IPA were also sold at the festival.
Boehm and Wheeler said signage containing “There’s a new Bock in Shiner” were posted at beer tents.
Boehm added big-name breweries have “come after us” by producing bocks and amber ales.