United States vs. Anheuser-Busch InBEV acquisition of Modelo

This is my first post. I have been a viewer for a while, and thought a lot of you might find this interesting. It is a Wall Street Journal article that talks of price fixing by ABI, and the rest of the macro-brewers following their lead. As well as the predicted outcome if such a takeover occurs.

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/DOJsuitABinbev.pdf

hope everyone finds this as interesting as I did,
-MD

Here We Go.

Pun intended. Thank goodness for anti-monopoly laws. ABI is a slick devil.

Rabble rabble rabble!

This is the opposite side of the Justice Department's argument: the merger would not lead to a monopoly on the market.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...82652.html?KEYWORDS=least+interesting+lawyers

This is the 'golden-age' of independent breweries right now. Homebrewtalk is an example of the 'few barriers to entry' to get into brewing; we're all doing it.

-MD

Monopoly is rarely the correct word. MLB is a monopoly. Commercial brewing in America is an oligopoly, the economic effects of which are not substantially dissimilar to those of a monopoly.

AB Inbev currently holds something like 39% of the domestic market. MillerCoors holds another 26%. Heineken and Modelo bring up the rear, with about 13% between them. That's 78% of the domestic beer market shared between four producers. The remaining 22% is shared amongst the thousands of smaller commercial breweries around the nation.

Just because you and I can make our own beer and maybe even sell it about locally doesn't mean that we can actually realize commercial success, particularly when distribution is so heavily skewed in favor of large breweries.

In my short time here I have learned one fact and that is...

Any thread created with the phrase Anheuser-Busch or InBEV is going to turn into a debate despite how it begins.

I'll just have a seat and stay out of this one *grabs the popcorn and follows thread*

Debate is not always a bad thing. I am on the fence, but see both arguments. I think big brew and craft brew are separate markets, and this merger wouldn't really affect craft brew in a negative way. If ABI dominated cheap, crush the can when you're done brew, and were able to drive the price up it would send customers toward craft brews. If Craft brewing prices would stay the same, people would be willing to pay the extra cost for quality beer, and the price gap between the two would shrink as ABI increased prices.
Certainly bad for other macro-brew companies, but possibly good to the booming craft breweries popping up all over America.
This is just one feasible outcome among many, which is why i find this so interesting.

-MD