Taps Coogan – August 12th, 2021

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One of the most pernicious trends of the last several decades has been the consolidation of the various consumer brands that we all buy into an oligopoly of a few global super-conglomerates.

Beer has been no exception and, as the following chart from Statista shows, these days a quarter of the world’s beer is sold by Belgian conglomerate InBev which bought out once-American brands like Budweiser, Busch, etc… Other once-American brands like Miller and Coors were bought out by Canadian conglomerate Molson Coors and so on. The result is that not one of the largest six beer makers in the world is domiciled in the US and InBev alone brews nearly 17 times more beer than America’s 8,764 operating craft breweries.

The ramification of this ‘oligopolization’ is very real. Beyond more and more of what we eat and drink tasting like the options on a highschool cafeteria menu, it’s hollowing out America’s middle class, economic dynamism, and once great cities.

Take Milwaukee for example. It was once the beer capital of the world and home to massive Schlitz, Blatz, Pabst, and Miller breweries, each independent companies that sustained the city. Since the 1980s, all the city’s once-great brewers have been bought by foreign companies, closed down, or moved away. The city’s population has declined and its economic momentum has stalled.

So next time you are thinking of buying a beer, or anything for that matter, take a moment and see if there is a domestically owned-and-operated option. There are plenty of alternatives. The only reason these massive oligopolies work is because we all go along with it.

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