Miller and Coors Hookup

I have just realized that I should be talking about beer news here on my beer blog, too.

The biggest news that I can think of right now is the Miller-Coors joint venture in the US. Now it isn't clear to me exactly in what ways they'll be pairing up, but they're supposed to save $500M per year by combining. I expect they'll still keep their flagship brands of each company. Maybe they will join forces to try to make higher-flavor beer. But they have been calling it a move against A-B. But yet combined, they're still maybe half the market share of our old Buddy Weiser, and their partners Busch et. al.

It seems to me that unless they are changing something about the products they make, this joint venture will just have a temporary cost savings that will probably be used up wastefully in some other area. This waste theory is just based on work I've done in the software inudstry for large companies. Let's just say that they're not normally the most efficient places to get something done.

I, for one, am happy about a joint venture between these guys. I think it weakens the mass-market beer segment, which leaves additional room for craft beer. I wonder what Coors fans who are Miller haters (and vice versa) will do now? Maybe try a nice locally produced Kölsch or Pilsner style beer?