Craft beer’s heady growth spurt was showing no signs of flattening at the start of the year. Hundreds of new entrants fired up kettles, and scores of established players expanded operations.
The raging movement toward small, independently produced brews drove the number of U.S. breweries to an all-time high.
Amid the time of great expansion was a billowing wave of change.
The beer behemoths and venture capitalists opened their checkbooks. The year brought a billion-dollar buyout of Ballast Point, Fireman Capital quietly and Anheuser-Busch InBev buying eight craft breweries — .
“It’s too early in the process to see how successful it’s going to be,” said Kyle R. Leingang, an attorney who specializes in the craft beer industry and acquisitions at Dorsey & Whitney LLP in Southern California. “You’ve already seen a more basic shift in how a lot of craft beer drinkers are thinking about the definition of craft beer.
“Does craft beer even mean what it meant at the end of last year?”
With the craze for craft on one end, the year brought the long-anticipated announcement that AB InBev would pair up with rival SABMiller. The gargantuan, $100 billion-plus deal is a global-focused play for the two largest brewers, but it has equally massive implications locally.
Denver-based as it aims to acquire the remaining portion of the U.S.-based MillerCoors joint venture it did not already own. The also has raised concerns and regulatory inquiries about how the deal would give the industry leaders a .
