Beer gets more chippy. Example – Jim Koch of Boston Beer had this to say about the legal situation with Anchor:
To the BeerAdvocate Community:
Unfortunately, Boston Beer was given no choice but to pursue legal avenues against Anchor Brewing and our former employee who was was in violation of a commitment that he made to us. His new employer, Anchor Brewing, violated this agreement when they chose to hire a Boston Beer employee knowing he was not free to take the job offered since he was given our entire sales, marketing and new product plan for 2012 only weeks ago. We take pride in allowing our senior people full access to such materials and in our robust and proprietary training. We feel betrayed when an employee does not adhere to agreements signed in good faith. We have not objected to this employee working for Anchor’s spirits business, just their competing beer business and just for a limited time.
Boston Beer has a policy of respecting similar agreements other craft brewers have with their employees and they normally do the same. We don’t poach employees from other craft brewers who are under agreement with their employer. A great respect and collegiality exists in the craft brewing community. The new owners of Anchor Brewing, who just recently acquired the Company after successful careers in the vodka business, may not be fully up to speed on how folks in the craft beer business have, in the past, dealt with this issue without litigation.
— Jim Koch
Founder & Brewer, Samuel Adams
Wow…