The mancave (aka the shed or basement) will get crowded if men splash out on all the latest beer gizmos released over the past few months.

It’s not just car makers that worry over President Trump’s border tax threat, beer importers are concerned too. Although Republicans haven’t yet drafted legislation, Constellation Brands, the number three brewer in the US, is already pro-actively looking at ways to avoid raising prices.

Craft breweries are facing slowing growth in the US. After years of two digit growth rates, long-established craft brewers are facing stiff competition from an explosion of small breweries to over 5000 and behemoth brands that have refreshed their offerings to compete.

New Belgium Brewing, the country’s number four craft brewer, has scrapped its entire line-up of India Pale Ales and will replace them with new varieties and different hop profiles in 2017.

On 21 December 2016, Coke and AB-InBev reached an agreement regarding the transition of AB-InBev’s 54.5 percent stake in Coca-Cola Beverages Africa (CCBA) for USD 3.15 billion, thus solving potentially conflicting interests. AB-InBev is a Pepsi bottler in Latin America and had inherited the stake in CCBA when it took over SABMiller.

All those hopefuls. According to the Brewers Association (BA), there were 5,005 breweries in the US in operation in December 2016, compared to 10,000 wineries. Almost all are small and independent craft brewers.

What investors think of stock market-listed brewers may just be a narrow-focus snapshot of the brewing industry in general but it would be unwise to ignore it altogether.

Thanks to Kirin buying a 25 percent stake in Brooklyn Brewery in October 2016, which ranks 12th among US craft brewers, the firm has the funds to build an USD 80 million brewery and warehouse to support the rapid expansion of its iconic brand. While the two-year long search for a site continues, an aspect has come to the fore that should raise a few eyebrows but apparently does not.

It does not look like BrewDog’s latest crowdfunding scheme is a hit with US investors. In August this year, Scottish brewer BrewDog launched a USD 50 million campaign to help pay for its new 300,000 hl brewery in Columbus, Ohio, which is slated to go on stream in 2017. The company is also planning to open a brewpub in any American city where at least 500 people invest in the company’s Equity for Punks USA crowdfunding campaign.

What will tobacco firm Altria do with its cash windfall from the SABMiller sale is a question that has irked analysts for some time. As part of its deal with AB-InBev, Altria received a greater-than-expected amount of cash – USD 5.3 billion. Actually, and this is the really juicy bit of info, the tobacco company had to work hard to negotiate an alternative to receiving cash only in exchange for its 27 percent stake in SABMiller stake.