However, at Black Project, we have deep and serious issues with many of ABInBev's business strategies, mission, and overall ethics as they relate to craft beer in America. In Denver alone, we've seen several instances of highly aggressive, predatory, and what we consider to be unethical practices. We truly believe that ABInBev intends to systematically destroy American craft beer as we know it. We don't personally buy, seek, trade, or acquire any of their products for this reason, and we've been known to encourage our friends to do the same. 
 
 As some of you may know, and something many people have asked us about today, we have two collaboration beers with Wicked Weed currently in-progress; one beer at our facility and one at theirs. We also had plans, and were looking forward to attending, the Wicked Weed Funkatorium Invitational this July. We had a decision to make - to continue a business relationship with Wicked Weed now that they will be owned by ABInBev, or to cut ties and hopefully remain friends. 
 
 For us, the choice is clear. At this stage, we don't feel we are able to have a business relationship with Wicked Weed because that connection, ultimately, is one with ABInBev. Unfortunately, we don’t feel that having any connection with ABInBev is something we can do while still maintaining our mission, values, and core beliefs. 
 
 What this means is that we will not be able to lend our name to the unfinished collaboration beer currently aging in Asheville, NC. Additionally, the beer we brewed with Wicked Weed here at Black Project will be blended with other existing aged beer we have on hand to make something totally different which we will not consider a Wicked Weed collaboration. Finally, we will not be attending the Wicked Weed Funkatorium Invitational in July. 
 
 We wish the best to everyone at Wicked Weed and we are happy for their success. We know they will continue to make great beers and we hope to remain personal friends in the future. 
 
 Sincerely, 
 
 
 
 James Howat and Sarah Howat 
 
 Black Project Spontaneous & Wild Ales ||||| With Anheuser-Busch InBev, MillerCoors, Sapporo, and other beer behemoths snapping up craft brewers left and right, the Craft Brewers Association is asking why this acquisition spree can’t also go the other way, which is why it’s trying to crowdfund a mere $213 billion to buy AB InBev, and then do… something, maybe, with it. 
 
 The group says its “Take Craft Back” effort is aimed at buying AB InBev, which it claims has taken the independence of real craft brewers as well as stealing customers’ freedom of choice. 
 
 “Since 2011, Anheuser-Busch InBev has quietly acquired 10 small and independent breweries, but they won’t tell you that on their packaging,” said the face of the campaign, a guy named Andy who appears in a campaign video for the group, and is identified only as “an avowed lover of craft beer.” 
 
 “Big Beer creates an ‘illusion of choice,’ but we are presenting them with a reality check — and hopefully, at the end of the day, with a real check too,” Andy said. 
 
 On its campaign site, the group accuses corporate overlords at Big Beer of buying up all of certain hop varietals to keep it out of the hands of independent brewers, even though they didn’t need or use the hops. 
 
 In addition, Take Craft Back claims on its site that these major companies buy up craft breweries “left and right,” and then use their “sheer financial mass to make sure that independent craft brewers who refuse to sell out get pushed to the margins.” 
 
 As of Monday at about 1:45 p.m. ET, the campaign’s site indicated it had received $265,160 worth of pledges. The group says pledges will only be collected after all $213 billion has been secured. 
 
 Yes, this is all pretty clearly just a publicity stunt by the craft brewers, but what if — just, what if — every adult in the U.S. each contributed $1,000, and miraculously made this thing happen? What would AB InBev’s new owners do with their new purchase — Break it up? Turn the factories over to homebrew aficionados? Start releasing Bud Light that tastes like something? It would be madness… though it will never actually happen. 
 
 Even so, we’ve reached out to the Association to ask about its ultimate intentions if the impossible were to become possible. We will update if we receive a response. 
 
 Want more stories from Consumerist? We’re a non-profit! You can get more stories like this in our twice weekly ad-free newsletter! Click here to sign up. ||||| Anheuser-Busch InBev NV (ABI), the brewer sued last week for allegedly overstating the alcohol content of its Budweiser and other beers, hit back today with an advertising campaign in major U.S. newspapers. 
 
 “They must have tested one of these,” the full-page ads say, showing a can of the drinking water that the company donates to the American Red Cross for disaster relief. “We take no shortcuts and make no exceptions. Ever.” 
 
 The ads appeared in 10 newspapers, including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and the Houston Chronicle, Terri Vogt, a spokeswoman for AB InBev’s St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch Cos., said in an interview today. 
 
 The company was responding to federal lawsuits filed last week by consumers alleging that it routinely adds extra water to finished products to produce malt beverages with significantly less alcohol content than displayed on its labels, violating state statutes on consumer protection. The complaints were filed in New Jersey, Philadelphia and San Francisco. 
 
 Leuven, Belgium-based AB InBev is the world’s largest brewer and controls 39 percent of the U.S. beer market. “The claims against Anheuser-Busch are completely false, and these lawsuits are groundless,” Peter Kraemer, the unit’s vice president of brewing and supply, said in a statement posted on its website Feb. 27. 
 
 The brewer’s ads are “classic non-denial denials which completely ignore the merits of our lawsuit,” Josh Boxer, an attorney at the Mills Law Firm in San Rafael, California, wrote in an e-mail today. The firm is representing plaintiffs in the San Francisco case. 
 
 Seeking Approval 
 
 AB InBev is seeking government approval to buy the rest of Grupo Modelo SAB, Mexico’s largest beermaker, for $20.1 billion. The Modelo brands account for 7 percent of the U.S. market. 
 
 The company’s shares rose about 43 percent to 72.23 euros in Brussels in the year through March 1, outpacing an 11 percent increase in the BEL 20 Index. 
 
 The case is Greenberg v. Anheuser-Busch Cos LLC, 13-cv- 01016, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia). 
 
 To contact the reporter on this story: Peter S. Green in New York at psgreen@bloomberg.net 
 
 To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kevin Miller at kmiller@bloomberg.net
– To a craft beer aficionado, the only sin worse than drinking a Bud would be if your favorite brewery sold out to the company that owns it. That's the situation that has fans of the Wicked Weed brewery now crying "treachery," per the Washington Post, which reports on the news that the Asheville, NC, institution has teamed up with Anheuser-Busch InBev "as a strategic partner." The reason for the move by Wicked Weed—which the Citizen-Times notes was founded in 2012 by Walt and Luke Dickinson and friends Ryan, Rick, and Denise Guthy—is, as Walt Dickinson explains, to stay competitive. A fellow craft brewery owner in Oregon backs him up, noting that his own brewery's acquisition by AB InBev offered him access to better ingredients and distribution. But the buyout has craft beer fans livid, especially after Budweiser's 2015 and 2016 Super Bowl ads that mocked craft beer drinkers. Wicked Weed's Facebook announcement was met with angry and sad emoji, with "very disappointed" and "disheartened" just a sampling of the negative comments. Some of Wicked Weed's distributors and partners aren't happy, either, with Denver's Black Project brewery cutting its ties to WW—not because it doesn't love the beer, but because it believes AB InBev has "unethical practices" and "intends to systematically destroy American craft beer as we know it." Other commenters on Wicked Weed's Facebook page say they will remain loyal fans. "At the end of the day, great beer will win," Walt Dickinson tells the Citizen-Times. (Walmart recently took heat on the craft beer front.)