10 Barrel Brewing has sent an application to the City of San Diego to expand an existing structure in the East Village into a brewpub. And I say, that’s a great idea…in 2014 before that Bend, Oregon-based business sold out to AB-InBev. As it stands now—with 10 Barrel a crucial link in the chain of acquired craft brands stretching from Elysian Brewing in Seattle, Washington to Golden Road Brewing in Los Angeles and east to Arizona’s Four Peaks Craft Brewery, Colorado’s Breckenridge Brewery and anchor 2011 acquisition, Chicago’s Goose Island Beer Company—it’s simply the latest bit of negative news I have to report to a legion of artisanal beer fans growing increasingly tired of Big Beer’s recent rash of tactics to diminish the market-share owned by real, independent craft breweries.

Many will simply say, “Who cares?” Those of that sentiment understand that 10 Barrel, a brewery that made good and interesting beers (and likely still does, though I won’t be drinking any of them), is not what it once was. The interest has devolved from a member of the craft brewing community into a pawn to be positioned against it, and AB-InBev is attempting to advance that pawn right into the heart of the urban action in what is arguably the country’s craft-beer capital. Into a 10,450-square-foot structure at 1501 E Street, to be exact. That’s a block north of Makers Quarter. Looking for an even more familiar landmark with which to orient? Try this one. It’s a block west of Monkey Paw Pub and Brewery, one of the most fiercely independent and vocally anti-Big Beer establishments in San Diego County. That should make for good drama, but after sellouts by local companies Saint Archer Brewery and Ballast Point Brewing and Spirits in 2015, Big Beer-inspired drama is the last thing San Diego imbibers need…or want right now.

Downtown San Diego—an area where as much if not more money comes in via tourists as locals—certainly makes for an attractive project site. Should 10 Barrel’s brewpub go in, most who visit it will simply assume it’s a local business. In all honesty, the majority of its patrons won’t concern themselves with something so trivial and inconsequential. With plenty of financial wherewithal behind it, the place will surely look fantastic and be highly marketed. And beyond the East Village, the beers brewed at 10 Barrel’s brewpub will almost surely find their way into distribution to the network of bars and restaurants where AB-InBev products are served, further chipping away at that oh-so-precious market-share Big Beer so doggedly covets.

At the end of 2015, I expressed the sincere hope that I’d spend more time writing about craft beer and less time discussing the business of beer, yet less than a month into the New Year, here we are. But such is the nature of business and, like it or not, craft beer is officially big business.