Craft beer group wants to buy AB InBev, but not really -- they just want to make a stink about it

The war between craft beer and Big Beer has been raging for the majority of 2017. This week, the former fired another missile.

On Monday, the Brewers Association, a nonprofit trade group that aims to protect the craft brewing industry, launched a tongue-in-cheek marketing campaign to #TakeBackCraft by raising $213 billion from craft beer lovers and brewers in hopes of "purchasing" beer giant Anheuser-Busch InBev.

"Since 2011, Anheuser-Busch InBev has quietly acquired 10 small and independent breweries, but they won't tell you that on their packaging," says a video released with information about the campaign. "Big Beer creates an 'illusion of choice,' but we are presenting them with a reality check -- and hopefully, at the end of the day, with a real check too."

That last bit about a "real check" is misleading. Those who visit TakeBackCraft.com and commit to pledging money are prompted to do so without any intents or purposes of ever having to pay, according to a note on the website. The organization even clarified on in a YouTube comment, stating, "... no money will be collected! We're just looking for support pledges to help spread awareness between Big Beer and true small and independent craft brewers and their beers!"

Still, many fans are rallying behind the cause.

In its first days, the Take Back Craft campaign "raised" more than $1.8 million from more than 5,700 backers.

In a statement provided to GuideLive, Gemma Hart, vice president of communications for Anheuser-Busch said, "We can take a joke!" Hart then added a few pointed words.

"While the fake money for this campaign 'piles' up, we will keep focusing our donations on giving back to communities across our country," Hart said. "We're proud of the more than 2.8 million cans of emergency drinking water we've donated in 2017 alone, with more than two million of those cans going out the past month alone to Texas, Puerto Rico, Florida, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Northern California. As a company, with 18,000 U.S. employees and together with our craft partners, we've given more than $13 million to worthy causes this year."

Marketing stunts like this one have recently become a crutch for beer businesses, which are seeking to define themselves in the industry's new normal. From Budweiser's Super Bowl ads attacking craft beer to Samuel Adams founder Jim Koch's editorial in the New York Times demonizing Big Beer, both small and large companies are pulling hair to try and woo drinkers.

In a video, Julia Herz, program director for the Brewers Association, called Take Back Craft "the gutsiest move ever made on behalf of U.S. independent craft brewers," and she might be right. Should the campaign lose steam, the industry might be presented with startling data about how many people care -- or how many people don't.