Has anyone else noticed that you can't find Bass Ale anymore?

Question

I've heard rumors that Bass Ale has been purchased.

Answer 1

This is true!

Bass is one of the oldest names in English brewing. Bass Ale however was and is a purely "for export only" product. Go to England any time over the last century and you would have found hundreds of pubs opened by Bass, serving ale brewed by Bass, but no Bass ale itself per se.

The rapid international consolidation of the brewing and beverage business has seemingly made Bass Ale one of its casualties. Interbev was forced to divest itself of Bass Brewing to complete a much larger merger in 2000, and since then the Bass breweries and the rights to the name Bass have been passed around like a bad penny.

For a long time Guinness and Bass were imported and marketed in the US by a common and powerful distributor, but now Bass has a much weaker distributor and thus has disappeared from large parts of the marketplace.

The distributor is important since retailers deal with them, not the brewers themselves. For example: In my area Sam Adams and Miller are distributed by the same company. It is therefore completely hit or miss as to being able to get Sam Adams specialty products. The distributor makes their money moving massive quantities of Lite and MGD and treats the Sam specialties as a nuisance more than anything else. My local beer specialist has long since given up wasting his time trying to obtain specific items from Boston Brewing or even understand how the distributor decides what he puts where. The distributor just doesn't care, and since they have a monopoly, there is nothing anyone can do about it!

The Bass name and Trademarks have wide recognition and appeal but time will tell if some form of Bass returns to your local bar, restaurant, or market soon if at all, and if it does whether it will be the same. After all many of the big names in British brewing (and brewing in general) such as Whatneys have disappeared entirely.

This does not mean that in certain areas it may appear that Bass Ale is stocked on the shelves of your local market as usual. After all, as long as there is at least one package on the shelf to meet your desires every time you go looking for it, for you everything seems normal.

In my case, I have found myself wondering many times in recent years when I saw a huge promotional display of Guinness or Harp ... Where's the Bass? Certainly not piled high next to the Guinness like it used to be! In fact I can't remember the last time I saw Bass on promotion or in a print ad, or the last restaurant or bar that had Bass on tap, which at one time was quite common. (I myself managed a bar that tapped Bass back in the early 80's).

Once upon a time a Black and Tan was usually made with Guinness and Bass. Sometime in the beer merger and divestiture wars, a Black and Tan became Guinness and Harp instead.

Here's hoping the product doesn't itself remains the same as long as it is still available. It wouldn't be the first product to get decimated by new ownership. Elephant Malt Liquor is one example. Foster's is another.

In the 80's Fosters was actually brewed in Australia and was a special and unique product in a heavy steel can almost the size and shape of an oil can. The Fosters name continues to this day bigger than ever, but for the last 20 years it has been brewed in Canada and is basically just another Canadian beer with an Aussie marketing hook. Sigh!

Answer 2

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Answer 3

I think I've vaguely heard of that purchase. But the new company would never get rid of Bass. And I just saw it today at Safeway. I'm sure it'll stick around.

Answer 4

i drink bass ale they sell it in Maine. what does a company being purchased mean to its availability? maybe the distributor in your area dropped it from their orders due to lack of interest

Answer 5

It's way less popular in my area (Orlando, FL) than it used to be. Had to go to 3 different liquor stores today, to find one that carried it... First liquor store said they stopped stocking it because it wasn't selling at all. But they have 300 different triple-hop'd hop hop beers....

Answer 6

you were quite laggered , steamed if think you were drinking bass mate. that lot is not the real British bass but the rubbish brewed by yanks in Baldwin new York its just another a b fake swill.

Answer 7

Go to http://www.bass.com/

I would say Bass is still alive and well.

Answer 8

I am sure if you went to a real Irish Pub, They will have it.

Answer 9

I see it around here in CT. I doubt you have to worry.

Answer 10

i just bought a 12er yesterday! what state are you in?