Posted on 02/26/2013 7:32:44 AM PST by 1rudeboy
Every day, the Web site BeerPulse tries to list every single new beer available in the United States. And that’s harder than you might imagine. Recently, the site posted Cigar City’s Jamonera Belgian-style Porter, Odell Tree Shaker Imperial Peach IPA, as well as a rye lager, a cherry blossom lager and a barley wine. And the list goes on, and on. In 1978, there were 89 breweries in the United States; at the beginning of this year, there were 2,336, with an average of one new brewery per day. Most of them are tiny, but a handful, like Sam Adams and Sierra Nevada, have become large national brands. At the same time, sales of Budweiser in the United States have dropped for 25 consecutive years.
So I was surprised to learn that the Justice Department is worried that Anheuser-Busch InBev, the conglomerate that owns Bud, is on the cusp of becoming an abusive monopoly. In January, the department sued AB InBev to prevent it from buying the rest of Mexico’s Grupo Modelo, a company in which it already carries a 50 percent stake. The case is not built on any leaked documents about some secret plan to abuse market power and raise prices. Instead, it’s based on the work of Justice Department economists who, using game theory and complex forecasting models, are able to predict what an even bigger AB InBev will do. Their analysis suggests that the firm, regardless of who is running it, will inevitably break the law.
For decades, they argue, Anheuser-Busch has been employing what game theorists call a “trigger strategy,” something like the beer equivalent of the Mutually Assured Destruction Doctrine. Anheuser-Busch signals to its competitors that if they lower their prices, it will start a vicious retail war.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Hardly. Brew pubs are pooping up all over town.
They’d have to start making beer first.
As long as there is another beer, I will not drink Bud.
So you're saying that some nerds at DOJ now think they are Tom Cruise in Minority Report and they are going to save us from future thought crimes?
Actually given the way the beer market already works it’s a pretty safe assumption that if one of them became a monopoly they’d break the law. Watch the documentary Beer Wars, it’s a brutal market filled with crazy backroom deals and questionable legality to when the companies aren’t monopolies.
DOJ is to “justice” as Yugo is to cars.
Holder = the Obamadork = Slime.
Buttwiper tastes like goat pee. Strike one. It gives me some nasty day-after side effects. Strike two. It’s also associated with the St. Louis Cardinals. Strike three.
Not likely.
We have five micro breweries in town, micros will never end.
I drink Yuengling
America’s oldest brewery
Made by Americans for Americans.......
Indeed. Their products can best be described only as 'malt beverages'.
Go Shiner.
I am sorry to say that my favorite beer is made in Mexico.
Dos Equis Amber.
“stay thirsty my friends”
Almost all the major beer companies are now owned by multi national conglomerates. Inbev, Molson/Coors, etc.
I’m genuinely surprised to find there is someone who knows what goat pee tastes like.
Maybe DOJ is worried they’ll corner the market on American-style pseudo-Pilsner.
“At the same time, sales of Budweiser in the United States have dropped for 25 consecutive years.”
Little wonder, Buttwasher is a nasty beer. Too sweet, watered down, and overpriced.
Beer monopoly? I thought Budweiser was what comes out of the Clydesdales after they drink water.
.... Heck .... I was rather disillusioned to find out the article wasn't about a new drinking game!!!
.... But seriously folks ... I hope we all realize that the era of cheap booze here in America will soon become a thing of the past!!! The price of Liquor and Alcohol is about to double to the prices that are currently paid by our neighbors to the north. There are reasons that the cost of booze is so expensive in Canada ... and this country just adopted those same reasons as new entitlements to go along with it's new system of government.
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