They Took Our Beer!

So this week's news that Belgium's InBev plans on buying Anheuser-Busch brought up two interesting things to me. The first from the article itself:

"Based in St. Louis, Missouri, Anheuser-Busch has more than 48 percent of American market share with brands that include Bud Light."

Really? 48%? I predominantly drink Bud Light as do most people I know. But I also buy a lot of other stuff. At the very least you would think that Miller, Coors, and all of the microbreweries would account for more than 52%. Which brings up the question of what that statement means. Are they saying that 48% of all beer purchased in the US is an Anheuser-Busch product? Or that 48% of all American owned beers sold are Anheuser-Busch products.

The reason I ask is because, once this sale goes through, what will be the biggest American owned beer?

Anheuser which will become Belgium owned brews the following: Bud, Bud Light, Busch, Michelob, Natural Light, and Rolling Rock

SABMiller which is South African based currently brews: Miller, Milwaukee's Best,Icehouse, Southpaw, Steel Reserve, Hamm's and Red Dog. They also appear to contract brew Pabst and Stroh's.

Molson Coors appears to be based in Canada though I can't totally figure out who had the upper hand in the merger. Also they have some sort of joint venture with SABMiller to market all beers under the MillerCoors name. Anyways, they brew: Coors, Keystone, Killian's Red, Blue Moon, and most importantly Zima.

So where does that leave us? Off the top of my head I would have to guess Sam Adams. Then you have all of the smaller regions beer companies like Sweetwater, Shiner, Flying Dog, Anchor, etc. But it seems the day of the watered-down funnel worthy American owned beer is gone. I guess you can hold on to the fact that they are still brewed in America.