Anheuser-Busch stake in beer-rating site causing unease

New York

FROM the rooftop patio of his growing brewery in the south-western elbow of Brooklyn, Shane C Welch, the founder and "chief visionary" of Sixpoint Brewery, appeared to have staked a nice corner of an intensely competitive beer market.

But the constant worry of being crowded out by the big brands, such as Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world's largest brewer, intensified this month when it was revealed that ZX Ventures, an incubator operated by ABI, had purchased a minority stake in a popular beer review website, RateBeer.com.

For smaller breweries such as Sixpoint, RateBeer had become an invaluable barometer for the marketability of th…