The Craft Beer M&A Craze is dead

A Strategic Verdict on Value Creation from 20 years of M&A

20 Years of M&A Craze: for what?

The extensive merger and acquisition campaign waged by global brewing conglomerates—including Anheuser-Busch InBev, Heineken, Carlsberg, and others—targeting emerging craft breweries since 2000 yielded Mixed results, skewing heavily toward Negative Return on Investment for the majority of large-scale portfolio investments. The primary strategic rationale for these acquisitions was sound: defending market share against the surging premiumization trend and utilising macro distribution networks to scale innovative brands nationally.¹ However, this rationale was fundamentally undermined by a critical miscalculation regarding the non-transferable nature of the craft brand’s core asset: authenticity and local appeal.