According to BeerAndWhiskeyBros.com, Discovery's new series on brewing has been cancelled after just five episodes. The initial season centered on founder Sam Calagione and his microbrewery, Dogfish Head Brewing Co. This comes at a time when craft breweries are exploding and finally getting the recognition they deserve. When I first heard the news, I assumed it was because the show lacked viewers, but I was wrong. According to the Twitter Feeds of Anthony Bordain, the host of Travel Channel's, "No Reservations," there was a much bigger reason for cancelling the series.
According to Anthony Bordain, the big beer companies, such as Anheiser-Bush and Miller, threatened to pull all their advertising on Discovery if it didn't pull the plug on the show. There is no doubt that these big beer companies spend millions of dollars a year for ads on Discovery to push their crappy beer, and that is certainly a hit that Discovery can't afford to take. While I have no resentment towards Discovery for canceling the show, this is just another stunt pulled by big beer to completely stunt the growth of craft beer. So, the first show in history geared toward the amazing process of craft brewing gets canceled due to the greed of big beer. Pretty pitiful of AB and others, if you ask me. On the bright side, it shows their growing fear of craft breweries.
I just hope that during the short time the show was on the air, Dogfish Head Brewing Co. gained some attention and continues to thrive. The reality of this situation shows that as long as big beer continues to dominate the beer market, we will NEVER see another show on television about craft brewing. Too bad, because I was really looking forward to another season of the show, along with other beer geeks. The good news: I now have yet another reason to hate BMC (Budweiser, Miller and Coors). They are making it way too easy to despise them.
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