The summary is good, but the whole panel discussion was pretty interesting.
The investor guy mentioned how the beer industry differs from others in the dislike of the big guys. He says many beverage companies start up with the goal of being bought out by Pepsi or Coke. Imagine a brewer saying his goal was to be bought by ABInbev!
There might be a lot of people out there who wouldn’t even contemplate a buyout now but after twenty years of cleaning mash tuns might feel differently.
I also would not be surprised to see more consolidation and acquisition in the industry into the future due to the way breweries are being financed. There is a growing number of breweries being financed through equity sales to professional and semi-professional investors who want to capitalize on the growth in the industry and have no problem selling out the brewery to cash out. There are too many people desperate to open a brewery without the capital to do it that are getting into terrible deals with equity investors who own and control so little of their business that they are in a position to find themselves without a brewery when the investors decide to liquidate or sell.
We financed our brewery and tap house through Craigslist (Cheap and well, not so easy) , it is nice to only owe money for a building. We may not have rows of SS fermenters and fancy brewing equipment but it is a brewery. It allows for less stress in our lives which is always a good thing.