Heineken sells fake craft beer in Ireland. What are they doing in America?

Just when you thought big beer couldn’t get any more manipulative and dishonest, Heineken hits a new, netherworld low, directly stealing from small breweries. It’s being reported from numerous outlets around ye grand ole internet that Heineken Ireland has been selling Heineken products to the Irish under the names of local craft beer.

Newstalk.com is saying that Heineken Ireland’s “low-volume high-quality draught products” were being sold at a number of outlets under local craft beer names, but that the company has now stopped this practice. Well, golly, thanks Heineken Ireland. You’re a standup subsidiary after all. Here’s a statement from Heineken from that Newstalk article:

“We apologise to our valued consumers and customers. This should not have happened. Heineken Ireland has appointed an external firm to investigate and help us understand how this occurred and to prevent it happening again,” the statement continued.

The brewer added that it “cannot make any further comment at this stage of the process.”

Luckily, that same sort of thing could never happen here, right? Would Heineken try selling fake craft beer to Americans? We guess that depends on whether you still consider Lagunitas a craft beer.

Newstalk notes that the financial services advisory firm, Grant Thornton, is doing the investigating. Henieken Ireland sells a lot of different beer brands, ranging from Coors Light and Singapore’s Tiger to Murphy’s Irish Stout and Beamish Irish Stout. Its craft portfolio includes Cute Hoor (which has an IPA and Red Head Ale), Mexico’s Sol, Belgium’s Affligem, Germany’s Paulaner, Italy’s Birra Moretti and Zwyiec, a premium Polish beer.

In contrasting hilarious news, Heineken Ireland was nominated “2016 Marketing Team of the Year” in May by All Ireland Marketing awards. We guess that’s pretty easy when Henieken Ireland’s magical products can morph into any beer imaginable. Award-winning marketing indeed.