While that most likely happens, it’s the exception. Critics like to key in on the places where Anheuser-Busch InBev and its nationwide army of distributors have the tightest grip on the taps, and are able to exert the most control - such as an airport bar, where all eight taps might pour Anheuser-Busch InBev products. It comes where it counts: on store shelves and on beer menus, at the places people open their wallets. It can be signage at a bar in downtown Denver, across the street from the Great American Beer Festival, which just so happens to tout nothing but Anheuser-Busch InBev acquisitions (with no acknowledgment of the common ownership, of course).īut most often, “illusion of choice” doesn’t happen at beer festivals or as signage outside a bar. It can be a beer festival where you'd never know that 41 percent of the beer traces back to a single company. “Illusion of choice” comes in many forms. They’re choosing from Anheuser-Busch InBev. When staring at a draft list that includes Anheuser-Busch InBev acquisitions Goose Island, Elysian, Golden Road, Blue Point and Wicked Weed, consumers aren’t choosing from a variety of companies. Being able to offer an IPA from Seattle, a lager from Central Virginia and a stout aged in bourbon barrels from Chicago - in other words, choice - was the entire point of the exercise. Those breweries are rooted in different regions of the country and specialize in brewing different styles. The largest beer company in the world has acquired a portfolio of 10 breweries with their own distinct stories, perspectives and approaches to innovation. Is “illusion of choice” real? On one hand, no - choice is the very thing Anheuser-Busch InBev bought. In many cases the beer even leads back to the very same brewing equipment. Thanks to its shopping spree, Anheuser-Busch distributors are able to offer a slew of beer brands that appear to the average customer to come from a variety of sources, but in fact trace back to that one company. The other result? “Illusion of choice,” say the critics ( most commonly, craft beer trade group the Brewers Association). The result? Within a mere seven years, Anheuser-Busch InBev has gone from craft beer irrelevance to the nation’s dominant craft beer manufacturer. It buys the scrappy upstarts.īetween 20, Anheuser-Busch InBev spent hundreds of millions of dollars acquiring 10 American craft breweries. (No, Shock Top and Michelob Winter’s Bourbon Cask Ale didn’t count - which was the problem.) So, as explained in “Barrel-Aged Stout and Selling Out,” Anheuser-Busch InBev did what multibillion dollar companies do when dominance is threatened by scrappy upstarts. That company, of course, tends the biggest beer company of them all: Anheuser-Busch InBev.Ī mere eight years ago, as craft beer was becoming ascendant in the United States, Anheuser-Busch InBev made no credible craft beer. “Illusion of choice” is a phenomenon sparked by the world’s largest beer companies buying their way into craft beer, amounting to what seems like a vast array of beer options in fact leading back to a single company. But my attention quickly drifted from the most heartening options - Canadian brewery Collective Arts, local heroes BuckleDown, Haymarket and Spiteful - to something no one is meant to see: the “illusion of choice.”
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