Brewing Buds: Big Beer corporations enter the cannabis industry

The term “Big Beer” refers to beer brands owned by large corporations that have international networks of capital, production and distribution. How and why is Big Beer entering the cannabis beer market this late in the game? Since 2017, Big Beer has slowly begun to test the waters of the infused beer space with the rollout of a number of tentative, experimental products. The rising tide of legal cannabis commerce is finally attracting the attention of so-called “Big Beer” corporations, and with good reason. Degree of Independence: A craft beer brewer cannot be more than 25 percent owned by “an alcohol industry member that is not itself a craft brewer.” A complicating aspect of the current distinction delineated by the BA is that Big Beer corporations can — and frequently do — buy up significant portions of small breweries without them ever being recategorized as Big Beer.