Beer behemoth no match for local breweries

Oddly, as microbrews get better and better, macrobrews have decided to get bigger and bigger.

That’s the pattern behind the news that the world’s top two beer makers have agreed to merge, creating a new king of beers one might call Bud Miller.

The actual merger is between Anheuser-Busch InBev – itself the product of mega mergers – and SABMiller, maker of Miller Lite, Pilsner Urquell and Peroni.

The deal valued at $104 billion would create a global beer company with control of leading worldwide beer brands. The merger will face scrutiny on anti-trust grounds before it can go forward.

Huge beer companies are turning to ever higher scale in order to hold off a revolution by lilliputian brewers who are making beer on a local level. Craft beer is winning over young beer drinkers who value the flavor of local beer and dislike investing their beer money in multinational corporations that make bland beer.

It’s a positive trend that’s especially strong in North Carolina, now considered the best beer state south of the Mason-Dixon line. The trend speaks to Americans’ good taste, good sense and knack for capitalism.

Getting bigger is unlikely to make mega-beers appealing to those who’ve developed a taste for craft beers. And it will likely increase the disdain of beer snobs for the rivers of beer running through a worldwide pipeline.

When CNN reported the merger with a headline that said: “ ‘Bud-Miller’ would own nearly half the world’s top beers,” a commenter wrote: “Let me fix that headline: “ ‘Bud Miller’ would own nearly half the world’s worst beers.’”

The beer battle will go on, but for a younger generation the issue is settled – smaller is better.

This story was originally published October 18, 2015 at 12:51 PM with the headline "Beer behemoth no match for local breweries."