The giants learned they'd not extinguished the demand for varied beers after all. When young adults started buying craft beers, the giants tried to cash in. That is their right, except when they fall back on deception and bullying. They push their imitations of craft beers. The goal is transparent, to hijack the bandwagon and knock everyone else off.
The most successful craft-beer imitation is a wheat beer that appeared overnight in bars, restaurants and liquor stores across America. From the website: "... we believe brewing is an art. And it's been that way since our head brewmaster and founder, Keith Villa, first created Blue Moon Belgian White Belgian-Style Wheat Ale back in 1995 in downtown Denver, Colorado." Keith sounds like one of those craft brewers, except that from its start Blue Moon was Coors, whose clout with distributors explains the beer's fast spread.
Still, the real craft brews keep growing, and a few older independents survive. The Big Two try to swallow and elbow the pests.
Swallowing has not gone far. ABI bought out Chicago's Goose Island and New York's Blue Point and own stock in suburban Seattle's Red Hook. But most craft breweries are not public offerings, and the owners refuse to sell to the giants.
Therefore the conglomerates crowd retail shelves, a strategy documented in the film Beer Wars. They crank out new brands and acquire old ones through mergers and buyouts. Never mind the old rule of one or two beers per brand; the Coors brand comprises five beers, Miller eleven, Budweiser eleven, and Bud Lite ten. Imitation craft-beer brands such as Blue Moon and ABI's Shocktop take in twenty or more.
Most of the new products have lackluster sales, many soon disappear, but they keep coming. In most states the store must buy from a wholesaler, who usually has an arrangement with one of the Big Two, and if you know the company's brands, they're easy to spot. Cases form pyramids by the entrance. They take choice places in rows, and their posters are everywhere. That's not enough for ABI, who aim to force distributors and retailers into an even greater focus on its products, according to both a craft brewer and a former distributor.
Even featured imports belong to one of the Big Two.
Globalization
Mergers and acquisitions happened in many countries, and good beers were lost. Next the conglomerates went multinational, and today a Big Four--ABI, SABMiller, Heineken, and Carlsberg--sell half the world's beer. ABI alone accounts for 21 percent. The Four use their distribution networks to move beers in international markets, and they brew popular beers far from their original homes.
It is possible to move beers or their brewing without impairing quality, but requires care the giants' managers often find uneconomic. Old customers protest what the Big Four have done to their beer. ABI draws by far the most complaints.
ABI swears they maintain quality, but their three top brands--Budweiser, Stella Artois, and Beck's--show otherwise. Complaints abound over Beck's brewed outside Germany. ABI cut alcohol in Stella and opted for cheaper hops and rice in Budweiser. A class-action suit has been brought against ABI for watering down Budweiser, but ABI makes up the losses by pushing their beers in new markets. Budweiser sales are down in the US, but up worldwide, and Wall Street loves ABI.
Brewpubs, microbreweries, and other craft breweries have become an international movement, but they are not immune from the giants. A worrying trend in Australia, where I now live, is that two multinationals, SABMiller and Kirin, own all but one of the big breweries and have bought out prominent microbreweries.
There's a world war of beer out there.
What Consumers and Citizens Can Do
Consumers can learn and avoid the conglomerates' brands. Package labels and brand websites often mislead. Wikipedia is helpful, but often out of date. The best sources are the beer-review websites beeradvocate.com and ratebeer.com, which identify owners of each beer. The reviews are also informative; they generally give the conglomerates' imitation craft beers lower scores than the real craft beers.
Whatever beer one likes, there are alternatives. Craft brews cost extra, for reasons that include generous helpings of quality ingredients, extra steps taken in brewing, low economies of scale, and small volumes in distribution networks, but they are not the only alternatives. Many imports are still independent. Within the US the older and surviving independent brewers offer their old lines and knock-offs of craft beers. They include August Schell, Christian Moerlein, City, Lion (Liebotschaner), Spoetzl (Shiner), Stevens Point, and Yuengling. Add Gennessee (Dundee, Hopper Whitman) and Huber; technically they're multinationals, but are owned by modest-sized overseas companies that are not guilty of anti-competitive actions in the United States.
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