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News Item:

LONDON — Shareholders of SABMiller and Anheuser-Busch InBev on Wednesday approved a deal valued at more than $100 billion to create a giant in the beer industry that would control some of the world’s best-known brands, including Budweiser, Corona, Hoegaarden, Leffe and Stella Artois.

As the most interesting man in the world says, I don’t always drink beer but when I do, I drink the craft-brewed stuff. So I find the merger of these mega ale purveyors problematic. Seriously, folks- even our suds are being corporatized as breweries are relentlessly combined into a handful of global... pardon me... vats. Anheuser-Busch, a division of Belgium-based brew giant Anheuser-Busch InBev, has been particularly aggressive in buying up regional craft brands such as Goose Island, Blue Point, and 10 Barrel. As boutique breweries have proliferated, they have taken market-share from the national brands such as Budweiser and Miller. Some of these craft brewers have grown into regional brands and attracted the acquisitive eye of Big Beer,  and the result has been buyouts. You may be surprised to learn how many “craft” brewers are owned either by larger brewers, or even by non-brewer investment firms. (An article in Men’s Journal lays out the basic picture.)

Of course, there are many beer houses that are strictly local, mom-and-pop type operations. The Men’s Journal article points out, “The Brewers Association trade group defines a craft brewer as small (less than six million barrels), traditional, and independent — with less than 25 percent ownership by a non-craft brewer.” These enterprises account for about 11% of the beer sold in the US annually.*

Small local brewers are a vibrant market segment. In my experience, the beers are good, and the selection varied. Most of the breweries’ public rooms share a common culture: They do not serve food, but rely on food trucks and local restaurants to provide food that patrons can bring with them. They offer grass-roots entertainment, usually in the form of open-mic nights for musicians, spoken-word artists and comedians. I’ve attended a poetry slam at Tractor Brewing in Albuquerque and played music at the Cape Coral Brewing Company in Florida.  

With all the chatter above government making it tough to start a business, this is one that is the epitome of the entrepreneurial spirit. The threat they face is not from government, but from the oligopolistic behavior of global corporations.

Think about that when you are deciding whether to order a Blue Moon (Anheuser-Busch) or Tractor Brewing’s Honey Wheat.

*Fortune, http://fortune.com/2015/03/16/craft-beers-volume-rising/