A crafty snack for SABMiller

Craft beer enthusiasts will be weeping into their beer (assuming they can find anywhere that sells it) at the news that the London-based Meantime Brewing Company is to be taken over by SABMiller, producers of such varied beers as Fosters, Grolsch, Miller, Peroni and Pilsner Urquell. SABMiller operates in 80 countries on every continent on the planet, so it's not exactly a merger of equals.

I can't help feeling that becoming part of the second biggest brewing corporation on the planet rather destroys the rebel image that many of these small craft brewing capitalists like to cultivate. With any luck, it might put ideas in to the head of Anheuser-Busch InBev: there's an irritating little brewery in Ellon, Aberdeenshire, that might suit their portfolio nicely.