Change May Be Brewing


of public affairs for the National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA). According to NBWA and Beer Institute data, U.S. brewing provides nearly 47,000 jobs that pay more than $4 billion in wages, while 91,000 wholesaling jobs pay $5.6 billion.

Anheuser-Busch has three African American-owned U.S. distributors, says Patrick Beauchamp, president of Compton, California-based Beauchamp Distributing Co. (No. 65 on the BE Industrial/service 100 list with $65.2 million in revenues). Beauchamp Distributing and a South Dakota company are the only two black-owned Miller distributors, Beauchamp says.

Ces Butner owns Horizon Beverage Co., an Oakland, California, Anheuser-Busch distributor with sales of $24.7 million. Yusef and Jonathan Jackson, sons of civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, are part owners of River North Sales and Service, Chicago’s largest Anheuser-Busch distributorship. The third black-owned Anheuser-Busch distributor is in Memphis.

Black-owned beer distributors tend to be small. Would they be swallowed by larger distributors after an acquisition? Beauchamp says he can’t speak for Anheuser-Busch, but because that brewer’s three black distributors are located in predominately African-American inner cities, he doubts the company will be asking them to consolidate with someone else. There was no consolidation of Miller’s two black-owned distributors after the brewer was acquired in 2002.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, there were up to 14 black-owned beer distributors. “It’s such a tough fight, and then you have a chance to maybe sell out for $20 million or $25 million, it’s pretty hard to turn that down. I’ve turned down offers maybe 50 times,” says Beauchamp, whose daughter, Stacee, is set to succeed him at his 37-year-old business. Given the opportunity, black-owned beer distributors could do a very good job for brewers’ products in some urban areas, Beauchamp says. “I hope that even with this InBev move, Anheuser-Busch-the biggest of all the breweries here in the United States-appoints some African Americans,” says Beauchamp. “They certainly have the wherewithal to make it happen.”


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