BEER VS. GOLIATH: Anheuser-Busch now controls the majority of the beers Americans drink

It's been on everyone's lips for months, but the merger between the Budweiser maker Anheuser-Busch InBev and Miller maker SABMiller is finally complete.

It was confirmed in regulatory filings on Wednesday that AB InBev is shelling out $108 billion for its biggest American beer rival after months of back-and-forth.

AB InBev was known for producing beers like Budweiser, Stella Artois, Labatt, and Goose Island; SABMiller was known for Miller, Foster's, Blue Moon, Peroni, and many others. The deal puts a huge portion of the world's beer market all under the same umbrella: The AB InBev-SABMiller union now has an estimated global market share close to 30% after divestitures, and controls eight of the 10 most popular beer brands in America.

These are just some of the brands the new beer goliath owns:

Beginning in the late '80s, when Stella Artois maker Artois brewery and fellow Belgian-beer maker Piedboeuf merged to form Interbrew, which, when it merged with Brazilian company AmBev in 2004, became the "InBev" part of AB InBev. InBev and Anheuser-Busch became AB InBev in 2008.

SABMiller, on the other hand, started with South African Breweries (SAB) acquiring Miller Brewing in 2002, the second-largest brewing company in the US at the time, forming SABMiller. SABMiller combined Miller with Coors maker Molson Coors, to create MillerCoors — a joint venture SABMiller is expected to sell back to Molson Coors as a part of the $108 billion deal.

In the past 12 months, there have been more than a dozen craft-beer mergers and acquisitions by larger breweries, including US-based 10 Barrel, Blue Point, Elysian, and Goose Island by AB InBev; and UK-based Meantime by SABMiller.

Starting today, they're all one big happy family (we hope).

SEE ALSO: The Budweiser-Miller merger sounds bad for craft beer — but it may be a blessing in disguise

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