Goose Island opened up as a family-owned Chicago brewpub in the later 1980s, and it shortly became probably one of the most inventive breweries in the world. In the fantastic age of light, bland, and inexpensive beers, John Hall and his child Greg brought Western european tastes to America. With distribution in two dozen areas, two brewpubs and position among the twenty biggest breweries in the United States, Goose Island became an American achievement story and was a champ of craft beverage. After that, on March 28, 2011, the Halls sold the brewery to Anheuser-Busch InBev, machine of Budweiser, the least craft-like ale imaginable. The sale forced the market to reckon with build beer’s mainstream charm and a reputation few envisioned.

Josh Noel broke the news from the sale in the Chicago Tribune, and he covered the resulting backlash from Chicagoans and beverage fanatics across the country as the discussion escalated into an intellectual craft beverage war. Anheuser-Busch provides since bought four additional craft breweries, and from among the outcry rises a question that Noel addresses through personal anecdotes from market market leaders: how should a brewery grow?