After a flurry of acquisitions of craft breweries by Corporate Beer over the summer, several weeks have passed without a high-profile brewery buyout.  Felipe Szpigel, President of The High End, AB InBev’s crafty division, said during an interview with Forbes, “Our plate’s full… We have 10 amazing craft partners.  Our focus is going to be organic.”  He added that AB InBev is “rethinking our business model surrounding the High End, centering more on efficiency.”

Forbes’s interview with Szpigel occurred shortly after AB InBev announced that they had layed off 90% of the workforce in The High End, primarily from the sales team.  No employees at the breweries themselves were affected.

Given that the individual breweries each maintain their own sales and marketing teams, it is likely that the centralized sales team had become redundant.  Indeed, Szpigel commented later in the interview with Forbes that it is important that “there’s a tone of voice for each brand.”  A centralized marketing and sales force would certainly work against that.

While we may be near the end of the era of Corporate Beer trying to muscle their way into the  world of Craft via buyouts, this certainly does not mean that the ultimate goal of Big Beer has changed.  They will simply be working using different means to claw back the marketshare that they’ve lost to Craft over the last 15+ years.  The next phase will be much less visible to the public but much more damaging to Craft brewers: expanding the store shelf space of Crafty brands.  Expect to see a lot more of AB InBev’s “10 amazing craft partners” on store shelves, at the expensive of beers that are truly craft brewed.

Craft on.