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This week in 1999, INSIGHTS noted there were lots of smiling faces among Miller distribs for a change at NBWA/Brewers conference. Distribs had a wide-ranging 2-hr meeting with new top mgt and the big news was that Miller moved fast to change two provisions in new distrib agreement which had rankled many. It would no longer demand legal disputes be heard in Wisconsin court and financial standards would become guidelines. Miller was also setting up 2 distrib councils, 1 on POS. There were lots of smiling faces among AB distribs at conference too as senior mgt shared that co's sales-to-retailers were up 4.9% thru Apr 5. Up nearly 10% in big Tex mkt. AB's Q1 was huge as volume grew 1.7 mil bbls, 7.9% in US, with ~700K bbls of that for inventory build. This week in 2002, consultant Mark Rodman made some eerily prophetic remarks as he addressed "blurring lines" and "clout in the house," as INSIGHTS phrased it. There was "a likely reality" that the "beer, wine and spirits business is fast-folding into a larger drinks industry," Mark told 4-state distrib meeting (PA, MD, DE and NJ) in provocative speech almost 25 years ago. Taking out his crystal ball, Mark said this pointed to "a reconfiguration of the entire beverage business to give suppliers more clout in a house. With more clout," Mark continued, "comes the capacity to grab a greater share of the profit centers of the middle-tier&hellip;. What brand owners demand is more of the profit pool. Heaven knows they're not going to get it from the power-buying retailers" like Walmart. Mark pointed to Diageo's push to get more exclusive distribs and postulated that other distillers/vintners would align with beer cos (including AB) for larger, blended distribution networks.This week in 2005, before we were publishing Craft Brew News, INSIGHTS shared a special report on 2005 Craft Brewers Conference by our Beverage Business Insights editor Gerry Khermouch: "Right now, their segment is the healthiest in the beer biz, but the more sober, pragmatic craft brewers who turned out for the Craft Brewers Conference and BrewExpo America in Philadelphia last week were doing very little crowing about that fact. That would have been too &hellip; well, 1990s, right? Instead, the talk was of such nuts-and-bolts issues as getting on the same page as wholesalers, coaxing the media onto another story than the obituary of craft beers and forging a working relationship with the bigger brewers on political issues," wrote Gerry. There was particularly good news with regard to craft brewers' battle vs imports. Imports' growth rate of 1.4% in '04 was the lowest figure in 13 years vs a 7% gain for craft brewers claimed by BA. Craft brewers, who had been frustrated to see so much of the high-end business tilt toward imports, were at the time relieved to see the pendulum shifting the other way. "We're beating the pants off imports," BA director Paul Gatza said to loud applause.Another hot topic was cocktail culture in US. Mainstream brewers were greatly concerned that "their cachet among younger consumers was being eclipsed by mixed drinks - with the attack helped by that Trojan horse, the spirit-branded malternatives that the brewers themselves invested so heavily in promoting," noted Gerry. It was a different story among the craft brewers. "For them, malternatives were bad news not so much because they went after the same consumers, as because their retail shelf space often came out of the craft set. Cocktails, though? After a quick scare, many craft brewers believe their segment is winding up as beneficiaries of a trend that has coaxed young drinkers into happily paying top dollar for intriguingly arcane concoctions," he added.This week in 2006, INSIGHTS noted Odom Corp had done a dozen deals over the past 5 yrs. They were mostly smaller rural distribs in WA and ID, but it all was adding up. Odom Corp was about to close on yet another deal to buy B&F distrib in Wenatchee, about 600K cases. Odom at time did ~$300 mil in revs, including 8-9 mil cases of beer, 3-4 mil cases of soft drinks (mainly Coke/Dr. Pepper in Alaska) and 2 mil cases of wine (tiny amount of spirits too). In late '05, Odom also became Gallo distrib in Seattle as Gallo was seemingly getting out of branch biz.This week in 2013, as Dept of Justice approved the ABI-Modelo-Constellation deal, INSIGHTS noted the extraordinary level of govt oversight as part of agreement. US govt had 2 trustees monitoring agreement, set deadlines for Piedras Negras on construction, plus insisted on all kinds of provisions on employees, including this doozy: "In the event the President is unable to perform his or her duties, Defendants shall appoint, subject to the approval of the United States in its sole discretion, a replacement within ten working days. Should defendants fail to appoint a replacement acceptable to the United States within this time period, the United States shall appoint a replacement." "So, if Bill [Hackett] or some future prexy can't perform his/her duties, and Constellation can't come up with choice acceptable to US govt, the govt could pick the leader of the biz. Ya gotta be kidding!" wrote INSIGHTS. Regarding govt oversight of construction, Crown ceo Bill Hackett said "we have no issues with any of that. We made a commitment" to the US govt. But he also noted there's all kinds of language in agreement to apply to every contingency that govt wanted to "weigh in" on, and it was his hope that after deal got done they'd "put agreement in drawer" and "not refer to it in the future."This week in 2016, ABI continued to make progress towards closing its transaction to buy SABMiller. ABI announced that Asahi was buying Peroni, Grolsch and Meantime (UK craft brewer purchased by SAB in 2015) brands, reportedly for $2.9 bil. ABI was "pleased to confirm" that it had "accepted the binding offer" from Asahi for certain SABMiller European brands ("excluding certain US rights") "conditional on the successful closing" of ABI-SAB deal, per ABI release. "Why haven't large Japanese brewers bought any US craft brewers yet?" wondered INSIGHTS. "They've certainly shopped and aren't shy about spending money elsewhere. So they must not be seeing value, or perhaps there are other issues." Kirin spent almost $4 bil in Brazil on Schincariol deal that turned out to be challenging from the start; Kirin reported first-ever annual loss in 2015 due to losses in Brazil. In the 10 yrs since, Kirin and Sapporo got into US craft biz in a big way, and Asahi acquired craft beer and bev contract brewer Octopi. But with sale of Stone Brewing this past Mon to Firestone Walker, Sapporo is getting out of US craft entirely.

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