Inbev was the beer company giant created in 2004 by the merger of the Brazilian company AmBev and the Belgian-based Interbrew. At the time of the merger, Interbrew was the world’s third largest brewing company and AmBev was the fifth, by volume. The combined assets of the two made the newly formed InBev the biggest beer company in the world.
Interbrew was the older company, with origins dating back to 1366 with the founding of Brauerei Artois in Leuven. The Belgian brewery would later create the popular international pilsner beer Stella Artois. Beginning in the 1960s, they bought several local Belgian breweries and in 1968 and 1974 acquired two more from the Netherlands. In 1987, the company merged with Piedboeuf, makers of Jupiler beer. At the time, the companies were the two largest breweries in Belgium and the new entity was renamed Interbrew.
In 1995, Interbrew bought the Canadian brewery Labatt and shortly thereafter bought breweries in Hungary and Russia. In 2000, they purchased both Whitbread and Bass in the UK and the German brewer Diebels in 2001. During the same time period, Interbrew also acquired Beck’s and Spaten, among other companies in Germany. The following year, 2002, two Chinese breweries were added to their portfolio.
In 2000, the previously family-owned company Interbrew went public and their stock began being traded on the Euronext Stock Exchange in Brussels.
The other half of InBev, AmBev, took its name from a shortened form of “American Beverage Company,” a translation of Companhia de Bebidas das Américas. AmBev was itself the product of a 1999 merger between two Brazilian breweries, Brahma and Antarctica. Both breweries were founded in the 19th century, with Antarctica being founded in 1885 as Companhia Antarctica Paulista and Brahma 3 years later, in 1888, as Companhia Cervejaria Brahma.
In 2008, InBev engaged in a hostile takeover of American brewing giant Anheuser-Busch, brewers of the famous Budweiser brand of beer. The result of the merger is the largest beer company in the world, Anheuser-Busch InBev, based in Leuven, Belgium, and run by Carlos Brito, the former head of AmBev.