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The Delicious Winners Of the American Beer War
Wolf Richter www.testosteronepit.com www.amazon.com/author/wolfrichter
Amidst all the things in the US economy that aren’t going in the right direction, the debacles, fiascos, and nightmares, is an industry of scrappy upstarts, tiny operations, and larger companies that use American ingenuity, marketing, and the right amount of hops to stand up to Wall-Street-engineered giants.
Beer is one heck of a tough industry in the US. Production peaked in 1990 and has since receded in small increments despite the enormous marketing efforts and Super Bowl ads by the largest brewing empires the word has ever seen. 2012 was a rare up-year, with a growth of a whopping 0.9%. But the growing population over those two decades has covered up an industry horror: per-capita beer production has fallen, according to the latest Brewers Almanac, from 26.2 gallons in 1982 to 19.2 gallons in 2011 as people switched from beer to wine.
But there is one subgroup in the $99 billion industry that is doing phenomenally well: craft brewers. In an economy that was stumbling along in 2012, they booked 15% growth by volume and 17% by dollars, according to the Brewers Association. Their market share in 2012 reached 6.5% by volume—up from 5.7% in 2011. It’s coming out of the hides of the big guys. In retail dollars, their market share grew to 10.2%, the first time ever in the double digits.
The higher market share in dollars is a result of their strategy to sell a premium product for a premium price. And people are buying it! “High quality, flavor-forward” is how Paul Gatza, director of the Brewers Association describes these brewskis. Craft brewers employed 108,440 people by the end of 2012 and created 4,857 new jobs. For the first time, retail sales broke through the $10 billion mark.
And they’re flexing their new muscles abroad: in 2012, export volume jumped 72%, to well, $49 million. Okay, tiny muscles. Less than 0.5% of the craft beer sold in the US, and barely noticeable in the overall scheme of things. It’s not going to reverse the US trade deficit anytime soon. Canada is the largest export market, with Sweden and the UK in second and third place. And shipments to Japan jumped 57%. Every little bit counts.
Breweries are popping up at a rate of over one a day! By the end of last year, 409 new breweries—310 microbreweries and 99 brewpubs—were in operation. But it’s not a laid-back affair. In addition to being able to brew good beer, they also have to be able to stay alive as a business. Not all did: 43 breweries shut down. So, by year end, a total of 2,347 craft breweries were in operation (1,132 brewpubs, 1,118 microbreweries, and 97 regional craft breweries). Almost all of them were closely held.
Back in the day before refrigeration, when beer didn’t last long and was difficult to transport across long distances, every town worth its salt had a brewery. The Brewers Almanac, whose data series goes back to 1887, recorded 2,269 breweries that year—the highpoint in the series. By 1918, the brewery count was down to 1,092. In 1920, after the prohibition kicked it, it was zero. But in 1933, suddenly 331 breweries popped back up. By 1941, there were 857, and that was it, the second peak.
With more efficient transportation, refrigeration, and industrial production, the industry consolidated into giants—57 by 1975. But a change was underfoot: among these 57 was 1 craft brewery. Now the industrial giants are down to 20. Three multinational corporations own most of them: InBev in Brazil, SABMiller in the UK, and Molson Coors Brewing Company in Canada. Pabst Brewing Company is still independent. And in 2012, they continued to lose market share.
But these 2,347 tiny craft brewers that have now pushed the brewery count beyond the 1887 high of recorded beer history keep winning the hearts and taste buds of American consumers. An incredible feat in our crazy times of financial engineering, outsourcing, and off-shoring. Their small-scale production is no longer just carving out a niche; it’s winning the large-scale beer war against the giants. Because their products rock!
Decades of economic mismanagement, political ineptitude, corruption, and financial fraud in Latin America – overseen by the IMF, now a protagonist in Europe’s Troika – reached their nadir in the Mexican Tequila Crisis. It should have served as a portent of the financial storms now buffeting Europe. Read.... The Tequila Crisis: The Prelude to Europe’s Economic Storm
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Agreed. Boulevard Brewing is my personal fav especially their smokestack series.
Sorry...can't help the cause.
For lunch I chugged a 40 oz Miller Lite and then watched Phils/Jays preseason game drinking 12 Pabst Blue Ribbon 16oz cans.
I drink to get a buzz...not drink Yuppie Shit beer to seem important and hip
Word: ethyl alcohol.
For your stated goal, why bother with anything less?
Dude, you're my hero! That's the equivalent of 19.3 beers. You might want to think about switching to liquor. You could get the same buzz with about 1/3 of a "handle" of 90 proof Bourbon and save yourself the distended abdomen.
Are you able to eat in addition to all those cold-beers?
craft beer, like real organic food, has been around since mankind. It is anything but hip. Unfiltered brewers yeast is one of the best form of B complex vitamins. Do not feed the Monsantos. Feed yourself
Live food for a live body. Civilization owes a debt of gratitude to the micracle of fermentation.
Amen, brother! Keep it local with all food consumption, including beer. If we all did that, the corporate conglomerates would be bankrupt by morning.
Locavores of the world, unite!
Of course, I'm a cheapskate and drink for the effect too, so I'm looking toward getting a 5 gallon still and brewing up some old fashioned moonshine, dontcha know.
OVERPRICED Yuppy Shit beer. These people don't know what they are talking about when it comes to beer. If these micro breweries could make their beer like the bigger breweries, they would. This is why, out of all the flavors most microbrews have on the menu, they don't have any that comes close to the commercial beer.
"OVERPRICED Yuppy Shit beer" is a catch-all phrase used by robot drone union workers for nonunion made beer. For those of you that are just that, might I recommend "Mad River Brewery" in Blue lake Califuckya. They are a union shop and their brews have almost double the alcohol as most unionmade pussy brews. I doubt you will like it though, because it has taste.
Dude, you are so lost behind the little animals. Drink a Double Stout from Green Flash and then come back and rhapsodize about the richness of Bud Lite.
You do know that PBR no longer exists, right? The name was bought and now is made by some faceless, cynical, bland ghoul? Kinda like your avatar...
....And you eat only beans and rice to and a vitamin tablet to meet your nutritional needs and not some of that meat or apples or doritos shit us yuppies eat to seem important and hip also. Is that right?
You drive a cheap assed, piece of shit car with car cancer and busted up seats to get around and not some yuppie Ford truck with unblemished fenders as well? Well, we got to impress others you know.
When you bang a chick, you seek out the ugly fat ones as well...none of that high class yuppie tang with all her teeth and a personality for you. That right? Our friends would think less of us if we didn't have minimum standards.
No room for taste in your feed bin - its all about effect. I get it. Well, good for you. More power to ya, man. You keep your end of the economy humming and I'll work on mine.
If you only drink for the buzz you're a dumbass for wasting your time on beer... The world is full of humps these days it seems. Just admit you are a pussy and can't handle the taste of REAL bier.
I have more money than you. So f++k you!
I have more rice and beans than you, b+++h!
Don't knock beans and rice, dude.
They both keep with no refrigeration, a year's supply costs less than $500.
Beans... beans... good for your heart...
The more you eat... the more you...
I'm raising a glass of MGD to JC. Happy Easter-Bitchez.
And about 7 months from now: Dranksgiving.
"Miller Lite"
Pitiful. My heart overflows with Christian compassion. No one should have to drink that watered-down feminized swill. I'm going to help you out with a hint: Real beers have REAL NAMES, and they don't include the word "Lite".
Try Arrogant Bastard--one bottle will "buzz" your little head off. Try Torpedo and Ruthless Rye (Sierra Nevada), Harpoon beers, Blonde Doppelbock (Capital), Dundee's Stout, Porter or Honey Brown Ale, and Saranac's Red IPA. Your life hasn't begun yet.
"Miller lite". No wonder the country has no testicles.
My standard response when someone orders a Miller Lite: "That ain't beer."
There is enough divisive bullshit over which to argue. Forget the disparaging remarks toward another indivudual's choice of libation.
Why not buy them something good, and enjoy the company?
Ha! Geta clue, they don't want beer.
The big brewers have done multiple surveys and have found conclusively that most Americans don't like the taste of real beer. That why their product tastes like water with a bit of alcohol in it. That's why American beer is the worst beer in the world, bar none!
The surveyers that bite are the same lot that watch DWTS and whatever else is nonsense on the TV. I wouldn't gauge the study of anything in America with a 10-foot spike.
Color me different, tho.
That's right. They just want something to wash down the 40 chicken wings they just inhaled, along with a bushel of french fries.
pabst blue ribbon is no champ but miller lite is undrinkable.
the heineken sold in the brown bottles in holland is tasty.
michelob draft in a brewery town if you can find it.
everyone has an opinion.
I'll drink to that
The dinosaurs can be beaten with the right product and marketing skills.
Watch out TBTFB!
Gold and silver are coming.
Well beer up and gird thy loins for a long cold battle, because AgAu is the new Russian front in the war against banksterz, and the new Russian winter will be a blizzard of paper, to shovel through.
Awesome..........Dont drink the 'goat piss'
http://www.bigskybrew.com/Our%20Beer
Put that Budweiser back in the Clydesdale,.......
Amen brother.
Wine is for girls, belch like a man!
Never ever leave home or travel to points unknown without this interactive Beer Map
http://beermapping.com/maps/citymaps.php?m=centralflorida
http://beermapping.com/
There's an app for that. Utappd is a decent mobile app. Google produces decent results on searches for "breweries" There is always the old stalwart pubcrawler.com. I never leave home without first finding out about the breweries at my destination. It is a good time to be alive if you like beer.
I raise my glass of Eagle Rock Populist IPA, to my fellow ZH'ers