The sheer hypocrisy is baffling. On 22 May 2017, the Texas Senate passed a law which seeks to limit breweries that grow beyond a certain size or become owned by a larger beer company, from self-distributing. But who is to benefit? Only the distributors, not the craft brewers.

Who would have thought that craft brewers would react to the sale of Wicked Weed to AB-InBev in early May with anger, rather than quiet resignation? Wicked Weed is AB-InBev’s tenth acquisition in the US, not its first.

The software giant SAP is suing AB-InBev for USD 600 million claiming it lost out in software licensing fees, media reported on 4 May 2017.

No surprise, really. On 4 May 2017, Heineken completed a deal to take full control of Petaluma, California-based Lagunitas. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The latest craft brewery sale to AB-InBev has more of a fall-out than usual. Within hours of announcing the deal, Wicked Weed, located in North Carolina’s beer city Asheville, lost its voting rights in its craft beer guild, was publicly evicted from collaborations with two independent breweries and exiled from at least a handful of local craft beer shops and bars.

In a personal email sent out on 8 May 2017, Lyn Kruger said that after 21 ½ years of association with the Siebel Institute of Technology (the last 17 years as President and COO) she has decided that it is time for her to take retirement. Her last day at Siebel will be 31 May 2017.

No wonder, distributors across the US are rallying behind state legislators to limit taproom sales at craft breweries. As the Brewers Association reported at its annual industry gathering, the Craft Brewers Conference, which was held in Washington, DC, from 10 to 13 April 2017, “at the brewery sales” rose to around 2.3 million barrels (2.7 million hl) in 2016.

You bet that Heineken will jump at the opportunity should Brazil’s brewer Petropolis be sold. Analysts have suggested that increasing pressure on the Brazilian beer-to-beverage group could lead it to seek a merger with a global brewer in order to remain competitive.

Brewers will hope that Michael Bellas, Chairman and CEO of the Beverage Marketing Corporation, got his forecast wrong. At the Beverage Forum in Chicago (27 - 28 April 2017) he said that this year’s beer sales in the US could drop by 0.5 percent or, at best, stay flat.

Given the general consternation over craft beer’s slower growth – only six percent in volume in 2016 – the fact that the craft beer category was outgrown by imports – seven percent – almost went unnoticed. What’s more, imports are still a bigger segment than craft.