Deep in the Heart of Texas

Without much comment:

New York and Houston, Texas—Today, Anheuser-Busch announced an agreement to acquire Karbach Brewing Co., a leading Texas craft brewer and one of the country’s fastest-growing craft brands. Karbach joins a diverse portfolio of craft breweries within The High End, the business unit within Anheuser-Busch that focuses on its craft and import brands.

Karbach is:

• Five years old
• Growing like a weed (17k in 2013, 40k in 2014, etc)
• On the move--from Houston to Dallas and an even newer bigger better.
• The maker of a generic line-up of beers (two IPAs, a pale, a kolsch, a wheat, a lager) that have a middling reputation.

I guess the one observation I'd make is that the American and international wings of ABI's acquisitions groups seem to have very different approaches. The domestic group has mainly picked up fairly generic breweries. The international group, by contrast, has plucked some real gems. I'm not sure what that suggests about strategy, but there it is.

And of course, we have the updated map as a parting gift.