Rhonda.. a sell-out.


Moonshot beer may be a nice beer to some, I personally think caffeine and alcohol are a disgusting mix. Either way, Rhonda tried to get "investments" from the big 3 alcohol giants. Seems like selling-out to me. I couldn't respect her at the end of the film. She was whining about only having about 23,000 in the bank one moment, then she said she's gonna support her 16 investors and take the company as far as it can go. Which is it? Is she struggling with a possible failure, which caused her to seek Miller, Coors and Budweiser, or is she going to make it happen some other way? I'd never drink her beer to begin with.. but I'd rather drink a stale, bitter corporate beer than the beer of a sell-out such as she was trying to become.

"Blame is for God and small children." - Papillon

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Wasn't she trying to get their reaction on whether they would like to invest in the company or the brand of beer. They learned that all the alcohol giants want is the brand.

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I agree that Rhonda, and her beer, were annoying, but I think she provided a very good side of what happens in the business world. The movie is not about craft beer versus macro beer, it is about what small business versus big business from the perspective of the beer community.

She is a sell out, and her concept of beer is gross, but the point is that she had a vision of what she wanted to build a business on, and that vision was instantly picked up and crushed, like a bud light can, by AB .. which is what happens to even the smaller craft breweries.

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I think the problem I had with her is that unlike the other small brewers they showed, she isn't a brewer at all. Rather she is somebody looking to cash in on a beer niche.
Everyone else started brewing as a hobby, then passion, then business. She's the exact opposite.

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That's right... she was looking to cash in on a niche, much unlike the others. Obviously she was a big part of Sam Adams and it certainly looked like she would have been MUCH better off if she just stayed there.

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She should have done some market research. Beer and caffeine are not a good mix, and although i think she is an intelligent business woman, Moon Shot will fail.

I agree that although she was portrayed as the "little guy" along side Dogfish Head, she is the opposite of the other microbreweries who treat brewing like a passion.

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Everyone seems to be on the same page here.

She was a sell out from the start. She was in it for all the wrong reasons and never had a passion for what she was doing, its all about business.

Her story was sappy, and she was made to look like a victim. I wouldn't wish failure on a person, she seemed like a hard worked and all, but i dont have much sympathy for her at all. Her idea wasn't very good to begin with.

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I haven't done any market research, but I know that she wasn't the first to come up with this concept. Even Drew Carey had his Buzz Beer.

Several months ago, a bar down here in Corpus Christi started carrying Kona Brewing Companie's "Pipeline", a porter made with hawiian kona coffee.
I've had coffee beers before, and thought they were nasty, but this is really great stuff.

Several people with me also loved the beer. It was demanded so much at the local liquor stores that when they finally got it, they couldn't keep it in stock.
I bought several 6 packs and am enjoying one right now.

Now, I'm not sure about the caffeine content, but the taste is like a bitter, dark coffee with a porter taste. When I took it to a college party, I'd say 2 out of 5 liked it - they were mostly the coffee drinkers, and also not the type that actually think Bud (or natty light) is beer.

Aparently, it does appeal to some!

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Kona Pipeline is great stuff! Lagunitas also makes a seasonal cappuccino stout that is very nice.

I don't think that Moonshot or Bud's "B to the E" were made with any actual COFFEE. As far as I can tell, they were just plain old American Adjunct Lagers, spiked with pure caffeine like soft drinks are. Both are off the market as part of the 4-Loko hysteria at the FDA. Aimed at college kids who want to get even drunker before passing out, I guess...

Rhonda came off as pure marketing and hype, not an actual craft/artisanal brewer. That's because SHE ISN'T. Her "New Century Brewing Company", is just an office and marketing department, with the actual brewing/bottling of the beer farmed out to the lowest bidder. She went through at least 2 in the short product life. First Lion Brewery (Stegmaier), then Matt Brewery (Saranac).

The fact that she was shown chasing after the corporate teat in the form of a buyout from Bud/Miller/Coors didn't help her case much, either...



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What you call selling out I call entrepreneurship. What they showed was a struggling small business trying to compete with big business and as a last resort reluctantly seeking to partner with her major competitors.

She was trying to make it against incredible odds. She is struggling with possible failure but she's not willing to give up.

I've never had caffeine-infused beer but I would try a Moonshot. I would not try the AB caffeinated beer - I've tasted enough AB to know what to expect and I don't like it.

Caffeine and alcohol have a long history. Cuba Libres have been a popular drink for decades. More recently Red Bull & Vodka has been very popular. I recently had a double-espresso vodka and thought it was great despite having to be convinced to even give it a try.

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Those posts make no sense at all.

Coffee imperial stouts have been happening for a long time.

She had her idea for a beer in the market.

She wanted to launch her own beer away from Sam Adams and by herself.

She could have launched it under the Sam Adams banner.

She didn't. She tried seeking investment.

People didn't understand her concept and didn't understand her requirements.

Her business plan was poor as she had no real logicial investment figure.

She required a certain amount to get going to expand.

Sam at the Dogfish Head brewery has done what she is trying to do.

He is still expanding yet still a microbrewer. I can get their beers in the UK.

Both are providing us with examples of craft beer away from the bland tasteless form most people know it. This should be advocated. Coffee with beer works wonders. She just needs to mix it with the correct style.

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What bothered me is that she calls it Moon Shot and shows a rocket ship. I may be wrong, but I've only ever heard the term "moon shot" worded as such in baseball, when a player hits a particularly high home run. It's got nothing to do with rocketry or aeronautics.

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I disagree, she could NOT have launched it under the Sam Adams banner, Jim Koch would never have let that happen. I'm not saying Sam Adams is a top-tier beer or anything but Koch has enough business sense not to invest in something like this--I'm sure that's likely the reason why he turned down her request for investment funds in Washington. Moon Shot will never take off, sorry to say. If there was ANY market for that sort of thing (a lager infused with caffeine, not a coffee stout) surely Budweiser would have brought out the market. Even with all their money, their advertising, and their political grip, they couldn't make a caffeinated beer take off-it seems improbable that she would be able to but not them.
Remember, beer is a very versatile drink. Had a long day? Have a beer and unwind. Having some friends over? Crack some beers. And wouldn't it pair nicely with your food as well? No one sits around with friends or at the end of a long day's work and thinks "you know, I really wish we had some caffeine right now."

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Budweiser already did "buy out" the market - they simply had to release a 3rd or 4th string product "B-to-the-E" and that killed the ability for some fringe product to ever compete. This was part of the documentary.

I honestly don't think that the product would have been all that good had I been able to try it, but hey, the person behind this documentary was the former head of Mike's Hard Lemonade and that stuff is *VILE*. Sugary sweet "lemonade" mixed with alcohol to make a "malt beverage." Certainly a lager with caffeine added at least sounds leaps and bounds better than that.

Well, the point is moot anyway since the nanny state Federal Government effectively banned the beverage when they went after Four Loko earlier this year.

"You've shown your quality sir. The very highest."

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I just watched this documentary in 2012, and it is truly saddening to watch Rhonda in this movie knowing what we know now, that she will soon be shut down. I sure hope that her family is alright. They said in the documentary that they would lose their house if it didn't work out.

I hate that we live in a tyrannical state that interferes with our freedoms on a regular basis. We should be able to drink a beer with caffeine if we want to. We should have the freedom to do whatever we want with our own bodies, as long as we do no harm to others. The government has no right to regulate our lives as closely as it does. I wish we had decent politicians to vote for, ones that understood that liberty is one of the most important human values. Unfortunately, both parties are just clones of one another.

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There are politicians that want to reduce this type of government regulation they are usually defeated in the primaries however because most people never take the time to vote for them. So we end up with candidates that had the best turn out in the primaries not necessarily the best ideas

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