Anheuser-Busch InBev, commonly referred to as AB InBev, through its growth and innovation arm ZX Ventures, acquired RateBeer, a once-popular consumer beer rating website, in 2016. Since that time, many of the website’s users—typically craft-beer-passionate people—have ceased to use it, and Anheuser-Busch InBev announced in December 2024 that it would shutter the site on February 1, 2025.
For Joseph Tucker, who founded the website in 2000 and continued to be its global project manager even during its ownership by AB InBev, it is a sad end to the site he created and grew. Tucker believes RateBeer played a part in the explosive growth in craft beer earlier in the century and created a community for like-minded beer lovers to share information.
The site was a treasure trove of data, which was the stated reason for AB InBev acquiring RateBeer in 2016. Since then, many craft beer drinkers, who often like to eschew beer from large multinational breweries, stopped using the site. Meanwhile, Untappd, a more mobile-friendly competitor, gained in popularity with a broader crowd. The parent company of Untapped, Next Glass, acquired Beer Advocate, another competitor to RateBeer, in 2020.
Despite Tucker continuing to manage RateBeer, AB InBev neglected the site—even today, an announcement at the top of the homepage dates back to 2020. In December 2024, the closure of RateBeer was announced in rather unceremonious fashion with Tucker posting a public statement on the website with instructions on how users can download their ratings before the site is closed down. On the website’s homepage, a small, innocuous notice directs visitors to that public post.
A screenshot of the RateBeer homepage has a small notice of the upcoming closure—and an announcement from 2020.
Don Tse
Tucker says that in RateBeer’s heyday, users would meet up during travels to share beer and solidify friendships. “There have been at least two marriages from people meeting on RateBeer,” says Tucker. The top three raters on the site—all from Denmark—logged over 50,000 different beers, evidence of how the site was influential in driving consumers to taste different beers and share them with friends near and far.
“Very sad to see the site go. The site’s database is by far the most accurate chronicle of beer history and knowledge, and the loss is immense,” said one RateBeerian, under the username puzzl, as a public comment under Tucker’s announcement. “I hate to say things like ‘this is a loss for humanity’ but what else could you call it? Decades of knowledge from both the world’s greatest experts and the general public on a given topic, all to be tossed in the garbage. It hurts to think about.”
Matt Berkowitz, another RateBeer user, says he has tried to acquire the website from AB InBev, having started discussions with them since before the announced closure. Berkowitz chronicled his efforts to acquire the site on another community post on RateBeer. While he says he initially had some fruitful discussions with AB InBev, communication with them has since ceased with multiple communications from Berkowitz going unanswered. A request by the writer of this article to speak with a representative of AB InBev also went unanswered.
Berkowitz says he is motivated to save the site because of the unique community that populates it. As a long-time user, he wants to save the site for people like him who used information from the site and the friendships made on it to guide their beer experiences and their travel, often meeting up with other users to share beers.
“I have the financial and technical contacts to acquire the site, reinvigorate it and keep it going,” said Berkowitz in a telephone interview. “I am a serious buyer.”