Hangover Thursday: Beeropoly

It’s Hangover Thursday, how’s your head? I spent last night drinking with a couple of friends that I consider family. They live out of state now, so getting to see them was a wonderful surprise. My drink of choice last night was black and tans, all of the bar’s drink specials last night were on Miller products. And Miller products tie in directly with today’s Hangover Thursday.

Anheuser-Bush-InBev is a giant beer company. Currently they already control 47% of the U.S. beer market. They want more though. Currently the Department of Justice is examining AB InBev’s request to purchase Modelo beer brands for 20.1 billion. Now AB InBev already owns 50% of non-controlling stake in Modelo, now they want the rest. Modelo makes Corona, the best selling import in the U.S. and currently controls about 6% of the U.S. beer market.

So if this goes through AB InBev suddenly has 53% of the market. Enter MillerCoors, I told you at the start of all of this we’d be talking about them. MillerCoors controls about 30% of the market. That’s two companies controlling over 80% of the market. Currently when I go to my grocery store I can find things like Session, Brooklyn, and Dogfish Head. I like that. I like have choices. The more the large companies control, the less stores and bars will be able to promote the smaller breweries.

It gets harder and harder to tell just who is making the beer you’re buying too. Brands like Shocktop and Goose Island are owned by big breweries. Brooklyn Brewery’s co-founder Steve Hindy spoke in depth on this merger in an opinion piece for CNN. It’s a fascinating read that you can check out by clicking here.