There's a lesson for us all in book on brewing

There are not many books written about the brewing business, and those that are tend to make pretty prosaic reading.

Until now, that is.

With the publication of Dethroning The King: The Hostile Takeover Of Anheuser-Busch, An American Icon by the Financial Times's Julie MacIntosh, all that changes, and brewing forms the basis for a blockbuster.

You might think that I have a vested interest in this book because of the 100-year-old trademark war between Budvar and American Budweiser.

Not true. The trademark business is worth only two sentences in the MacIntosh book, where we are described as a "burr in A-B's saddle" (otherwise a pain in the backside).

Despite the writer's unflattering view of my brewery's place in the brewing universe, I still recommend this as a great read.

On the American side, MacIntosh writes of senior managers who couldn't get their minds round the idea that their sybaritic corporate lifestyle was under threat. Facing them she paints a picture of the Barbarians at the Gates as being lean, mean, more committed to wealth than beer creation and to real power rather than its trappings and, above all, being completely focused on their goal.

The thing that really struck me about the book, though, was how this American icon was laid low so quickly and without a real fight.

You would have thought this would have been the mother of all takeover battles but the old A-B, that we at Budvar had come to know and love in a best-of-enemies kind of way, just wasn't there anymore.

The other thing was — where was the consumer loyalty that we hear so much about?

After all, this was a brewery that generously supported so many of those things that are intrinsic to the lifestyle of middle America.

There was a petition started to urge the American Government to prevent this sacrilege.

Even Budvar UK signed it, asking: "Where would Jerry be without Tom?", but it didn't attract the signatures of the millions of American citizens that you would have thought it would.

So, besides being a great read, I recommend this book to you, whether you are a brewer or a retailer, as a warning to never take anything for granted, not to get soft or over-indulgent and to remember just how fickle even the most loyal customer base can turn out to be.

Tony Jennings is CEO a Budvar UK​