Here is some Sunday reading for your afternoon.

http://www.marketwatch.com/…/craft-beer-acquisition-by-duve…

This merger makes Duvel the 7th largest U.S. Craft Brewer. Pretty substantial. Duvel has needed a west coast regional powerhouse, and in Firestone, they now have it.

It is promising to see that Boulevard and Ommegang have remained relatively autonomous following their agreements to come under the Duvel umbrella. What is a little worrisome is Duvels strategy (http://www.duvelmoortgat.be/index.php?id=en-strategie).

“Expansion through a scrupulous takeover policy

Duvel Moortgat remains interested in acquiring additional distribution channels and production companies, on the condition that they are profitable, offer high quality and are strategically complementary with the rest of the Group.

Corporate governance for the benefit of the stakeholders

Proper management is a basic requirement to fully exploit the financial resources that the shareholders provide to the company, and benefits all stakeholders. The key concepts here are ‘profitability’, ‘cost control’ and ‘return on investment’.”

Most notably, where is the intersection of quality and cost control? I suspect that remains to be seen.

I want to remain cautiously optimistic that this is going to benefit all parties, but I suspect at some point that a switch will be flipped and we will get the lean, mean, cost cutting, profitability > quality / innovation machine. Time will tell.