Australia: Asahi’s Green Beacon booted out of craft brewers association

Queensland craft brewer Green Beacon has been booted out of the national organisation overseeing the interests of hundreds of small craft brewers as that same group raises concerns with the competition regulator about Asahi's looming A$16 billion buyout of Carlton & United Breweries, The Australian Financial Review reported on September 2.

Green Beacon was acquired by Asahi on August 21, just four weeks after the Japanese group unveiled a much larger A$16 billion buyout proposal for Australia's biggest beer company, CUB, owner of mainstream beer brands Victoria Bitter, Carlton Draught and Great Northern.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is conducting inquiries into the CUB buyout ahead of a decision earmarked for late October on whether it might insist on divestments before approving the transaction.

The Independent Brewers Association, which has hundreds of craft brewers as members, has raised a number of concerns with the ACCC about the CUB buyout as part of the regulator's process, with submissions closing on September 6.

Separately, it has already forced Green Beacon to depart from the IBA membership ranks following Asahi's acquisition of the Queensland group, because it is now part of a global conglomerate.

IBA president Jamie Cook said on September 2 that it was no longer appropriate for Green Beacon to be part of the group. "The large brewers have very big scale advantages and Asahi is a very big organisation,'' he said.

Mr Cook said the IBA's main concerns with the $16 billion buyout of CUB were around market concentration, access to taps in hotels and bars for smaller players, and the clout Asahi already had in the hospitality industry from being the owner of the Schweppes soft drinks business in Australia.

"It's quite a powerful portfolio,'' he said. The IBA was concerned that a combined Asahi and CUB would lift its overall market share beyond 50 per cent in beer, but that it also had extra negotiating muscle with Schweppes soft drinks and its cider operations.

"We have issues with market concentration,'' he said.

CUB already holds a 48.8 per cent market share, and with the addition of Asahi's estimated 1.2 per cent share via the Asahi and Peroni beer brands it will have a stranglehold on the market.

The craft brewers association had also had renewed discussions with the ACCC about the broader issue of access to taps in pubs and clubs, which they believe they are locked out of in many cases because of cosy relationships between large hotel groups and the two big beer companies, CUB and Lion.

"We felt that it was opportune to put that back on the table,'' Mr Cook said.

Mr Cook is a co-founder of Byron Bay brewery Stone & Wood.

Asahi's portfolio of craft beer brands in Australia already included Mountain Goat and Cricketers Arms before the Green Beacon purchase.

CUB had also been stepping up its own presence in craft beers well before the Asahi buyout offer, acquiring Sydney's 4Pines and the Adelaide-based Pirate Life.

Australia has about 650 craft beer companies, many of them built from scratch on a shoestring budget.

CUB estimates craft beer now makes up about 10 per cent of total beer volumes in Australia.

02 September, 2019