It's Australian For Mega-Merger

In an ongoing attempt to create a brand that is global for beer, SABMiller is about to buy up Foster's.

Sic semper the oil can.

SABMiller is the only major brewer left with enough money to finance the merger. All the other big names, like Anheuser-Busch InBev, are skint after buying up other smaller breweries.

The maker of Italy's Peroni and Milwaukee's Miller High Life will soon become Australia's beer provider. If they have their way, there will come a day when you won't be able to walk into a bar anywhere in the world and buy something other than a SABMiller product.

Foster's shareholders could still block the deal, if they're more inclined to maintain Foster's as Australian for beer than to reap a hefty profit on their holdings.

Such a scenario, however, is unlikely.

With the global economy on the decline, beer sales have followed. No one has the money for a pint, much less an enormous can full of liquid Prozac.

Indeed, Foster's has pulled back from its own heady days of acquiring smaller rivals, and it off-loaded its wine business some time back when profits were heading in the wrong direction.

Just a matter of time, then, before Foster's becomes Australian for SABMiller's long reach around the globe.

How much longer before all the beers start to taste the same, as one mighty behemoth brewer seeks to reduce overhead by making the same thing at multiple locations to better reduce costs?