Craft Beer vs. Budweiser: How Small-Brewers Are Winning Back the Neighborhood

[marmar]

from YES! Magazine:



Craft Beer vs. Budweiser: How Small-Brewers Are Winning Back the Neighborhood
Good beer comes from collaboration, not competition. By working together, small-brewers everywhere are giving corporations a run for their money.

A.C. Shilton posted Mar 02, 2016



When Sierra Nevada Brewing Company was looking for a city to host its new brewery, it had a stringent list of requirements: The city had to be near outdoor recreational opportunities, it needed to be centrally located on the East Coast, and the state’s laws had to be friendly toward craft brewers.

Asheville, North Carolina, seemed like an obvious choice. It’s centrally located on the East Coast, with easy distribution channels to New York and Miami, and outdoor recreational activities are abundant. But it was struck from the company’s list for one key reason. “We didn’t want to go into any city where we’d be within 50 miles of another craft brewery,” said Brian Grossman, Sierra Nevada’s general manager. “We didn’t want to be the 800-pound gorilla that came into town.” While this may seem unusual for a profit-driven business, it wasn’t for a craft beer company.

Since the beginning, craft beer has been about community. Before your neighborhood taproom started stocking hoppy IPAs, before most of us sampled nitro-infused coffee porters, before growlers were part of our dinner party lexicon—the craft beer movement was mostly a loose coalition of home brewers tinkering in their basements and sharing recipes over the beginnings of the Internet. And since beer brews in batches, they needed friends to help drink it. In living rooms and back porches across the country, the gospel of good beer was spread one kicked keg at a time.

“Most professional brewers started as home brewers,” says Julia Herz, craft beer program director for the Brewers Association. She adds that although many small-brewers have turned pro, they’ve largely stayed loyal to their homebrew roots—meaning they believe the best way to brew good beer is through collaboration, not competition.



In the past two decades, craft beer has seen remarkable growth. According to the Brewers Association, in 1994 only 1.3 percent of America’s beer market was craft beer. By 2014, though, it had gulped up 11 percent of market share. .............(more)

http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/craft-beer-vs-budweiser-how-small-brewers-are-winning-back-the-neighborhood-20160302

[Kilgore]

1. Mmmmmmmmm Beer!!!

[LuvLoogie]

2. Strong craft brewing market in Chicago.

I think that this is one of the few growth areas left in domestic manufacturing.

[mopinko]

4. cuz we pretty much started the whole darn thing.

goose island opened in '88. there was, i think, 2 other brewpubs in the country at the time. they did a great job of spreading the word about good beer. they also kept the last professional brewer's school, seibel institute, afloat through some hard times.
now i dont even know how many small brewers there are here. at least a half dozen.

and the hall family is retiring on their well deserved fortune.

[LuvLoogie]

8. I went to Goose Island a lot during the 90s. We would eat there

or at Uncle Julio's (was great, now disappointing) then end the night at The Blue Bird. Man that was a great bar. Great vintage booths, great chill vibe, great music library--gutted and ruined by new yuppie owners who opened a very forgettable, sterile club.

[dembotoz]

3. As bud gets bigger and bigger I buy smaller and smaller

[trotsky]

5. Yeah but InBev's new tactic has been "If you can't beat 'em, buy 'em."

All sorts of successful craft beer brands have been snapped up by the big boys. As a consumer you need to stay informed to keep starving the beast!

https://www.mainstreet.com/article/these-7-craft-beers-wont-be-craft-in-2016

[lame54]

6. hence the name change...

They were proudly called micro-brews but they needed to shed that because many of these companies are no longer micro

[Amishman]

7. some of the micros have outgrown the label as well

Stone certainly comes to mind. From tiny to 300,000 barrels a year.

Others have outgrown the 'micro' label as well, but remain independent.

[LuvLoogie]

10. New Glarus used to sell in Chicago, but now it's just Wisconsin

I think. That's OK. It gives me another reason to pop up to Madison now and then.

[LuvLoogie]

9. I still like Bell's a lot. I had their Kalamazoo Stout

for the first time recently. It's so good, and might be my favorite stout right now.

[Stuart G]

11. k and r...nt