Foreign funding grows in U.S. craft beer world

• From the New York Post

Foreign beer makers are taking some big swigs of the frothy U.S. craft beer business.

Just this week, the number of breweries in this country surpassed 5,000 for the first time, up 1,000 in the past year and light years ahead of the 50 in operation in the mid-1980s, according to the Brewers Association.

Fueling some of this growth is the capital flowing in from foreign breweries, including giant conglomerates like Anheiser-Busch InBev, which bought nine U.S. breweries over the past couple of years and even smaller operations like Agrial, a French organization that bought Seattle Cider Company and Two Beers Brewing in September.

“The craft beer industry has gone global and these overseas breweries see the US as the most developed and best market for it,” said Benj Steinman, president of trade publication Beer Marketer’s Insight.

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