Five months after the Colorado craft industry experienced a bitter divorce, it’s reuniting with new leadership and rules to address big-beer’s intrusion into the market.

The Colorado Brewers Guild, the state’s trade association, announced Wednesday it will join forces with Craft Beer Colorado, a splinter organization representing the state’s biggest brewers that defected in June after internal discord.

The rift occurred after Anheuser-Busch bought Littleton-based Breckenridge Brewery, one of the state’s most recognizable names in craft beer, and made other advances into the state’s beers scene, such as the opening of its 10 Barrel brewhouse in Denver.

“Advocacy and marketing just got a lot stronger on behalf of Colorado craft brewers,” said Brian O’Connell, the founder of Renegade Brewing Company, one the breweries that broke from the guild. “There is no question that we are stronger as one.”

The two groups will reconstitute under the guild’s name and hire a new executive director after its longtime leader, John Carlson, stepped down after the split.

Craft Beer Colorado’s members broke from the guild in June, on the eve of the industry’s 20th annual celebration in Salida. The guild’s new board will include five members from Craft Beer Colorado and five from the current leadership. Both groups independently approved the deal last week.

As part of the agreement, the guild’s bylaws will adopt a rule excluding Colorado-based breweries in which global brewers hold a 25 percent stake or more — a definition used by the Boulder-based Brewers Association. The breweries affected include Breckenridge and 10 Barrel, as well as Coors-owned Blue Moon and AC Golden.

Steve Kurowski, the guild’s spokesman, said the bylaws were written 20 years ago when “the landscape was not envisioned as it is now. They really weren’t updated as the industry grew. all the sudden we needed a full overhaul.”

The merger occurs just two months before the 2017 legislative session starts and the guild is working to address the overhaul in alcohol regulations approved earlier this year. “We all realize we are better with one voice,” Kurowski said.