Speaking of Heineken’s purchase of FEMSA, Public Radio’s Marketplace had a story on how consolidation of brewing giants can help craft brewers.

Marketplace: Are beer mergers a good brew for biz?

Uli Bennewitz owns the Weeping Radish Farm Brewery in Jarvisburg, N.C. He also runs a butchery and an organic farm.

Everybody is wary of “where does this stuff come from?” There is clearly a move towards local, local, local. And I think that is an advantage for small breweries.

They also follow up with a bit of analysis on the Marketplace blog:

Maketplace Scratch Pad: One world, one beer company?

Paddy [Hirsch] recently visited Stone Brewing Company near San Diego, and they told him they loved it when the big companies merged. The mergers turn off beer-drinkers, perhaps in principle but also because something bad seems to happen to the flavor of a decent beer when it gets swallowed up by a mega-corporation. People start looking for alternatives.