Beer Map: Two Giant Brewers, 210 Brands

In the past decade, a few big beer companies went on a buying spree, spending some $195 billion to buy up brewers around the world, according to Bloomberg.

Beer drinkers can be excused for not noticing. Unlike, say, airlines, which fold their acquisitions into one big, global brand, big beer companies tend to keep the brands they buy in the market.

As a result, the two biggest beer companies on the planet Anheuser-Busch InBev and SABMiller now own more than 200 brands based in 42 countries (including 18 in the U.S. alone). We've put together this handy guide so you can know whose beer you're really drinking.

Source: Planet Money Reporting

Credit: Caitlin Kenney and Lam Thuy Vo / NPR

The story of Anheuser-Busch InBev's rise to global dominance is all about consolidation. Inbev was born out of a merger of Belgian brewer, Interbrew, and Latin American brewer, Companhia de Bebidas das Amricas aka AmBev, in 2004. That same year, Anheuser-Busch grew by acquiring one of China's biggest brewers, Harbin. The company we know today came about when InBev bought the American/Chinese powerhouse, Anheuser-Busch, for $52 billion dollars in 2008.

SAB Miller, the number two global brewer, got its name in 2002 after South African Breweries bought Miller. Just a couple years later, the firm grew by buying up the second largest brewer in South America, Bavaria. Two years later, they launched a joint venture in the U.S. with MolsonCoors to create MillerCoors. In 2011, they bought Australia's biggest brewer, Foster's, and took a big stake in Russia's second biggest brewer, Efes.

These days, the beer market is increasingly about the world outside the United States. The fastest growing beer market in the world right now is China, and several South American markets are growing rapidly as well. That's why brewing giants like ABI are trying to snap up brewing operations all over the globe. Just last April, ABI paid $1.2 billion for a big stake in Cerveceria Nacional Dominicana, the Dominancan Republic national brewer, which brews Presidente beer.

That's why Anheuser-Busch InBev (ABI), the world's largest brewer, wants to buy the world's sixth largest brewer, the Mexican brewer Grupo Modelo.

The buyout offer would give ABI control of 46 percent of the U.S. beer market (it has 39 percent of the U.S. beer market and Grupo Modelo has 7 percent). That alarmed the Department of Justice's antitrust division so much they sued to stop the merger.

But ABI really wants to make this deal happen. The company even agreed to sell off the right to sell Corona in the U.S. The move is an attempt to appease U.S. regulators, but it hints at something larger ABI's interest in the market outside the U.S.

"The AB InBev and Grupo Modelo transaction has always been about Mexico and making Corona more global in all markets other than the U.S.," the company said in a recent press release.

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U.S. Moves To Halt AB InBev's Purchase Of Grupo Modelo

A $20.1 billion merger of beer conglomerates is now delayed, after the U.S. Justice Department sued to stop Anheuser-Busch InBev's acquisition of Mexico's dominant brewer, Grupo Modelo, Thursday. The agency's antitrust division says the two corporations haven't done enough to protect consumers.

The deal would put Corona, Bud Light, Stella Artois, and other popular beers under the same corporate umbrella, ending the competition that Justice officials say has resulted in lower prices. The Mexican government approved the merger last November.

In its proposed form, the merger "would result in less competition and higher beer prices for American consumers," says Bill Baer, Assistant Attorney General, of the Antitrust Division. "If ABI fully owned and controlled Modelo, ABI would be able to increase beer prices to American consumers. This lawsuit seeks to prevent ABI from eliminating Modelo as an important competitive force in the beer industry."

Citing the Justice Department's complaint, Bloomberg News reports that Modelo's and AB InBev's pricing strategies are diametrically opposed, with Modelo consistently providing pressure for lower prices, in contrast with "ABI's well-established practice of leading prices upward."

Reacting to the suit, AB InBev called the U.S. move "inconsistent with the law, the facts and the reality of the market place." The company promised "to vigorously contest the DOJ's action in federal court."

The company also said that the merger, which would give AB InBev the remaining portion of Grupo Modelo that it doesn't control, will now be delayed until after the first quarter of 2013.

Last October, SAB Miller's Coors Light supplanted Budweiser as the No. 2 beer in the U.S. But SAB Miller produces less than half the amount of beer that a combined AB InBev-Grupo Modelo would, according to Bloomberg.

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