Is Ballast Point Worth $1 Billion? Our Market Valuation

Crushing beers, crunching numbers.

We live in an era of big data and even bigger acquisitions.

Last week, San Diego craft brewery Ballast Point was purchased by massive conglomerate Constellation Brands for an unprecedented $1 billion.

It's the fourth major West Coast craft brewery to be sold. Seattle's Elysian and Bend's 10 Barrel were recently snapped up by Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world's largest brewery. Heineken, the world's third-largest brewery, bought a 50 percent stake in Lagunitas in September.

We wondered which behemoth got the best beer for its buck, and which craft brewery took its purchaser for the proverbial ride, so we crushed some beers and we crunched some numbers. We awarded breweries up to 1,000 points each based on everything from medals won and barrels produced to subjective grading of their branding and how well their pubs fare on Yelp.

What did we find? Based on our market valuation, InBev got a great deal on Oregon's 10 Barrel.

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