HARTFORD — Craft brewing is a budding industry in Connecticut, but the merger of beer giants SABMiller and Anheuser-Busch InBev has stoked fears that the conglomerate could corner the market on key ingredients or harm local distribution efforts.
“When you’ve got the company that owns the majority of your brands telling you to do things, there are going to be some challenges,” said Curt Cameron, owner of Thomas Hooker Brewing Co. in Bloomfield.
Cameron, who just opened a new location at the Colt complex, invited several area brewpub owners to stop by Monday and share their concerns. Sen. Richard Blumenthal attended the meeting.
The two large companies have bought so many craft breweries, Cameron said, “one of our concerns is that they can say, ‘Hey, sell our craft brands, not necessarily all these other local guys.’ So it’s something we’re monitoring.”
Shareholders last fall approved the takeover of SABMiller by its competitor, Anheuser-Busch InBev, a deal valued at more than $100 billion. The new company would account for 27 percent of beer sales worldwide, according to news reports.
As a condition of the merger, Blumenthal said Monday that the new entity would be banned from anti-competitive practices, such as buying up significant amounts of hops or barley, or pressuring distributors to stop selling smaller brands.
“It will control almost half of the United States market, but maybe most disturbingly to me, it will have huge potential power for abuse,” he said. “We want [local brewers] to tell us whether there are any constraints on competition, any attempts to force them away from distributors or pressure on the distributors to avoid doing business with them.”
Craft brewery owners asked about enforcement and methods of reporting abuse, and whether the conditions of the merger would prohibit bad practices overseas. The conditions apply to anything that affects sales in the U.S., Blumenthal said.
Owners of the Alvarium Beer Company in New Britain, Hop Culture Farms & Brew Co. in Colchester, Still Hill Brewery in Rocky Hill, Back East Brewing Co. in Bloomfield, and Hog River Brewing Co. in Hartford were among those in attendance Monday.
Though Hog River doesn’t distribute yet, owner Ben Braddock said he’s keeping an eye on other things, like the availability of important ingredients.
“The ability to go out and buy raw materials just to make the beers we want to make, that’s huge for us … especially hops at this point,” he said. “The consumer wants beer with certain varieties of hops and if we can’t get them for an affordable price, we can’t make those beers and that puts us in a tough position.”
Blumenthal said he’s visiting several companies throughout the state, encouraging managers to report mistreatment.
Connecticut has seen rapid growth in the craft brewing arena. The number of microbreweries, brewpubs and contract brewers in the state jumped to 55 in January, up from 16 in 2011.
In the Hartford area, there are now nearly two dozen brewers or breweries operating or in the planning stages.
