Beer family trees

Some time ago I wrote a blog post about The bourbon family forest, which contained a collection of trees that, rather than being genealogical trees, instead showed the corporate ownership of American whiskey.

Here is a similar arrangement for "the six companies that make 50% of the world's beer", produced by David Yanofsky at the Quartz blog. As before, the vertical axis is actually a time scale, but the trees are only marginally family trees in the genealogical sense. Note that there is a reticulation between two of the trees for the "Scottish & Newcastle" entry, although this was apparently followed immediately by a subsequent divergence.

Nevertheless, roughly the same sort of information could actually be presented as proper genealogies. Here is an example form Philip Howard's blog, restricted to American beer. Note that the genealogies refer to the joining of branches through time, rather than their splitting. There are two reticulation events, one of which also refers to the "Scottish & Newcastle" entry.

It is also worth noting the use of other types of network by Philip Howard, to look at:

• Visualizing ownership in the soft drink industry
• Concentration in the U.S. beer industry
• Concentration in the U.S. wine industry