It's a Small Beer World

The world economy is teetering on a scary precipice. The vast majority of the world's BEER is brewed by only a handful of companies now. This is an oligarchy. AB-InBev controls about 25% of the world beer market. SABMiller, Molson-Coors, and Heineken (just announced that they are purchasing Femsa for $5.5 Billion) more or less control the rest of the world's beer. This is a scary notion. If only a handful of companies control the entire market worldwide they can dictate the prices that they are willing to pay for the ingredients. This means that they will crush the grain and hop growers, while gouging consumers. They can manipulate the marketing by controlling ad budgets and shelf space in retail outlets. At first glance you might think, "Great, they lower the price of the ingredients and the small brewers making real beer can get the ingredients cheaper too!" except you would be wrong. Since the small brewers now make up only a infinitesimally small fraction of the overall market the hop growers and grain producers will actually raise the prices charged to small brewers because they have no leverage. How screwed up is that? And since the small brewers can't get their beer on the shelves to sell it, it is harder to make any money. So bad beer becomes more expensive and more pervasive. Good beer becomes more expensive harder to find. No one wins. Even the red-neck Americans drinking the now Belgian beer, Budweiser, will feel the effects of this oligarchy. The only solution is the use your wallet. Buy microbrews, or brew your own, but DON'T buy crappy beer from the Walmartification (I think that I just invented a word) of brewers.