Ale Street News Online

Being old sucks. I mean, I’m not even old yet, and it sucks already. I’m losing hair, my eyesight’s failing, and I don’t give a damn about the music on the radio.

One good thing about being old is perspective. You’ve seen more than the youngsters, so you can fit more things into a framework that makes sense, and not get excited, scared or depressed about the news.

Take the InBev buyout of Anheuser-Busch, the new Anheuser-Busch InBev, as they’re calling it (I prefer InBud). The foreigners have taken over American brewing, say the handwringers, Budweiser is no longer an American icon!

The wheel turns, I say. Small wheels: Japanese banks bought up American real estate in the 1980s, Australians bought Iron City, and G. Heileman of Lacrosse, WI was going to put together a national brewing empire built on rust-belt regional breweries. All a memory. Bigger wheels: Ballantine was headed for national dominance, nothing could ever displace Heineken as the biggest imported beer, and the Soviet Union would be our adversary into space and beyond. Dust in the wind…perspective.

So keep your hats on. It’s not even over. It might seem like this is the end of the beer world; the Titans have Clashed, Godzilla and Mothra have duked it out. But as long as more than one remains…it ain’t over.

After InBud has had a few years to digest A-B they’re going to keep looking. Carlsberg is owned by a foundation that legally can’t sell it, Heineken is solidly family-owned, and Grupo Modelo’s voting stock is similarly family-locked, and they’ve all demonstrated that they like it that way.

That leaves SAB/Miller for InBud to devour, and like A-B was, they’re strong where InBud isn’t, like in Africa. That will make one mother-loving big company, left weeping like Alexander, realizing there are no more worlds to conquer. Or maybe "MillerCoors" is just a dress rehearsal (like the A-B/InBev import arrangement apparently was — at least for InBev, if not a clueless A-B) for a real marriage that will make them even bigger, and they might get together with Grupo or Heineken and divvy up InBud.

But if you’re reading this column in this paper, you probably don’t give two hoots about any of the beers involved. Budweiser’s what you’ve evolved past, you say; what does all this mean for craft beer?!

There are actually a number of ways this can affect craft beer. The one that has people most worried is distribution. They’re concerned that InBud will go to war with A-B wholesalers (almost all of whom are independent businesses), forcing an even more draconian "100 percent Share Of Mind" style program of InBud-only product line on them to displace the craft brands that have found happy, productive homes there.

Relax. InBud wants those wholesalers very badly, and they’re going to recognize that they can’t ask for complete 100 percent brand loyalty while they’re cutting marketing support, rewards, and discount programs, which they are almost inevitably going to do. As long as the 3-tier system remains in place, wholesalers will be able to represent the brands they want.

What will happen is that InBud will push their specialty brands into that system in greater volumes: Leffe, Stella Artois, Spaten, Beck’s, Staropramen, Boddington’s, and Hoegaarden. That means more choices for retailers, but maybe more pressure on them, too: hey, why not drop that craft and put in this authentic Spaten Oktoberfest?

On the other hand, I don’t believe InBev is going to want to spend the money on A-B’s wild "innovation" spree, AKA "Throwing Shit Against The Wall To See What Sticks." The only things they’ll probably keep are Redbridge, the gluten-free beer (which retailers tell me they literally cannot keep on the shelves and one Belgian importer tells me is a dead ringer for what Palm used to taste like), the organics...maybe, and perhaps the as-yet-unreleased Budweiser American Ale, though that might be a tougher sell with that name after the purchase. The "craft" seasonals like Shocktop will likely all be gone: InBud doesn’t need competition for Hoegaarden.

InBev has been all about focus, and in the American market, InBud is gonna focus on Bud Light (and the hot new Lime package), Budweiser, and Mich Ultra. In fact, probably anything with marginal sales will be gone. Bud Dry may finally die, Bud Select will go off market life-support to sink or swim (my vote’s for a swift sinkage).

It won’t just be brand focus, either, it’s going to be business focus. Their main issue in the U.S. market is hardly the pinpricks of craft beer sales. It’s the revved-up MillerCoors joint venture newly based in Chicago, the growing slice of market going to wine and spirits, and that afore-mentioned working with the wholesalers.

InBev isn’t afraid to stoop to conquer, though. They’ve taken small-scale competition quite seriously in Europe, and may well do so here, moving to crush upstart crafts. If that does happen, they’re likely to find craft brewers quickly playing the "brewed in America" card, with a very good chance of success. (And I would suggest that another brewery could play that card in a huge way: Yuengling, America’s Oldest Brewery, which is 100 percent American-owned.)

That’s the upshot. There’s a chance that InBud won’t be able to mesh their three very different corporate cultures — despite what you keep hearing, it’s a company that is as much Brazilian as Belgian — and InBud will split up in a few years, but don’t bet on it. There will be more big brewer consolidation, but fuel costs and hops costs and caustic costs (the new price disaster) will have a lot more effect on the success or failure of craft brewers.

That, and the quality and character of their beer. Because that’s what you and I are most concerned about.