Pour
Strong Brew
Craft beer is gaining steam in the American beverage market.
By Mark Spivak
Sam Adams’ Utopias is certified by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s strongest beer, at 25-percent alcohol.
Like many other things in life, beer used to be simpler. Americans didn’t have many choices until the late 1980s, when the explosion of craft brewing saved hops enthusiasts from beer boredom.
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Craft brewers can loosely be defined to include microbrews, brewpubs and regional brewers. Their ascendancy came just in time—from 407 brewers in 1950, the United States total had shrunk to approximately 83 brewers operated by 44 brewing companies by the early 1980s. Last year, there were 20 large noncraft and 23 regional noncraft breweries left in this country, while the number of craft brewers had grown to an amazing 1,406. Even before the craft brewing movement took hold, regional beer producers had a respectable market share. Just ask anyone who ever drank Blatz, Old Milwaukee or Genesee. Many of our earliest brewers were immigrants from Germany or Eastern Europe, and they reproduced the style of beer that had been popular back home. Over time, however, the beer industry came to resemble many others. It was dominated by large players who turned out a standardized product. |
You don’t have to go to one of America’s nearly 1,000 brewpubs to find a handcrafted beer or ale. The shelves of retail stores are filled with dozens of craft brews. Among imports, Belgian beers such as Duvel, Chimay, Kwak and St. Bernardus dominate the field. Some of them are packaged in wine bottles with corks.
The resemblance to wine is intentional. Within the beer industry, the conventional wisdom is that devotees of Pabst Blue Ribbon are not making the leap to craft brews. Wine drinkers are the target audience for upscale beer and the lifestyle associated with it. There is a plethora of books on the art of beer and food pairing, including The Brewmaster’s Table by Garrett Oliver of Brooklyn Brewing, Jay Harlow’s Beer Cuisine: A Cookbook for Beer Lovers, and Stephen Beaumont’s Brewpub Cookbook.
The full text of this article is available in the July/August 2008 issue of Palm Beach Illustrated. Order now.
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