AB InBev Buys Stakes in Craft Beer Sites, Provoking a Backlash
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Anheuser-Busch InBev has quietly moved into the digital publishing business with a series of investments in websites that cover beer culture and the rising craft beer industry. But the slow move by the nation’s largest brewer into the editorial business is raising conflict-of-interest questions and causing blowback in the boisterous craft beer community.
The complaints began coming last week when it was disclosed that AB InBev took a minority stake in RateBeer, a site that publishes consumer-driven beer ratings and stories on beer culture. The investment, by the brewer’s incubator and venture capital unit ZX Ventures, took place in October but only drew notice last week after after it was discovered by another craft beer beer news site, Good Beer Hunting.
ZX Ventures also funds a beer culture magazine called October that was introduced in January by Pitchfork, the music site owned by Conde Nast.
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