A Lawsuit Could Decide the Fate of PBR and Other Working Class Beer Brands: New at Reason

A Wisconsin courtroom was the setting this week for a lawsuit pitting some of the biggest names in watery American beer against each other. The case pits “hipster favorite” Pabst, parent of PBR, against the much larger MillerCoors, which Pabst claims wants “to put it out of business.”

Earlier this year, Pabst sued MillerCoors, alleging MillerCoors has engaged in “breach of contract, breach of anti-competition laws, fraud, and misrepresentation.” The companies’ currently have an agreement in which MillerCoors brews Pabst’s beer brands. That agreement is about to end, and MillerCoors seems ambivalent about renewing the contract. Pabst has asked the Wisconsin court to award it $400 million in damages and to force MillerCoors to renew the contract.

Courts shouldn’t force parties to renew a contract, writes Baylen Linnekin, even if failure to do so could imperil one party to the contract. But this particular contract could be beside the point. The beer market is changing, and America’s megabrewers are in trouble.

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