• Washington Post, Tuesday, September 8, 2009 11:18 AM

The fact that Anheuser-Busch InBev and MillerCoors, with 80% market share between them, are raising their prices at the same time "almost begs for an antitrust review of the industry," write Aliza Rosenbaum and Rob Cox. While price increases are not unusual, these are trying times for the brands' customers, they say, and the move highlights the power wrought by consolidation in the industry.

In other words, we probably would not have seen the price bumps if Anheuser, Miller and Coors were still at one another's throats for market share. After South African Breweries bought Miller from Philip Morris in 2002, for example, A-B responded by slashing prices aggressively, forcing Miller and Coors to match its cuts or risk losing ground to Bud's nearly 50% share.

Rosenbaum and Cox point out that taking on Big Beer might be politically popular for the Obama administration because the three big brewers are now foreign-owned. Plus, the Department of Justice dismantled a number of beer deals in the past.

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