The Bar Towel

Derek wrote: Could be a matter of history. Very few North American brewers survived prohibition, so they didn't need a quality product to compete (and almost anything would seem to be high quality after the bootleg brewing).

Maybe it's been like this for 70 years (which is a long time in North America, yet only a small part of brewing history)... but hopefully our history is changing.

America's regional craft brewers (and even some of Germany's big macro's) are showing that you can still have a successful business making large volumes of a quality product.

Not that I'm advocating big business. You still can't beat fresh, local craft (assuming it's good).

But I'm preaching to the choir... everyone here knows that the North American brewing industry is seriously messed up!

I may be off base here, but I see the entire North American macro market in the same light as the factory food industry. Prohibition had little to do with it, beer quality went down the tubes at the same pace as food quality; Coors Light = Cheese Whiz (Coors Whiz? ).

Sloooowly North Americans have started to care about what they put in their bodies and what it tastes like. Localisation is a big part of that. Organic foods start local and many have spread into national brands. There is money to be made in quality today just like there was money to be made in petroleum based crap over the last fifty years.

Size is not the enemy, but quality control may be a challenge and accountants might cut corners ingredients. As long as consumers are vigilant and vote with their dollars, there is room for 'big micros'.

Do we think Joe Sixpack will care? Probably not, Joe Sixpack feeds his kids Mc Crap and calls it a treat.

I like to think brewers like Black Oak & Heritage are our little quality secret, but at the same time I wish all the possible business success on on them. They may care, but they also deserve reward for their business risk taking. Besides, the example only encourages more brewers to join the fray.

Derek: I think you tweeked onto something that is true of the Canadian and American beer culture/industry ( as well as the food indisty Tapsucker). We really are in an ongoing process to recover from the effects of "prohibition"....remember Europe never suffered having most of their breweries shut down due to legislated temperance, nor did their cultures suffer from the regressive bureaucratic control mindset towards beer that temperance promoted.

But overall we are recovering from a post war corporatization and national brand distribution phenomina in the food industry in gerneral...I agree that fast foods show the same corporate disregard for tradition and flavor in a compromise for uniformity, blandness and convenience/availability that the brewing industry was following from post prohbition times on.

North America's brewing industry and culture prior to prohibition was almost a mirror reflection of the European cultures that produced the immigrants....the beers were very similar to authentic styles but the industry was largely local...with each town or city having a number of local brewers crafting beer in traditional processes with traditional ingredients many of which were produced locally.....North american ale and beer had a unique character due to the local hops and the skills of the local malters...those brewers who also malted their own grain were usually old-world trained/skilled and their produce more accurately reflected old world brews.

Eventually in the late 1800s some of these larger self contained brewers became prominent and were looking at becoming a "national" brand buying breweries across the nation to brew their famous branded product ( Canada really hadn't reached this stage but we had prominent brewers who exported into 3-5 differnt provinces ( Dow/Molson/Carling/ Kuntz, Shea's etc) Ian Bowering estimated there were over 300 local and community Canadian brewers before prohibition.

When temperence movements gained political power and Politicians in the North American democracies were forced to put prohibition to a vote and we ended up with forced temperance. Canada escaped this scourge with only a 3-4 year run in some provinces but the US was saddled with it for 13 years. Post prohibition Canadian beers were legislated weak (2-4% ABV) and it took nearly a decade to see brewers making full strength beers again.

The effect on the pre-prohibition small local brewers was devistating... most closed and went into other fields ( taking their skills and recipies with them) others were consumed by the larger brewers who managed to survive producing near beer or soda or icecream...the malting industry in the US was reduced to 2 malters.....many of these larger regionals were bought for pennies on the dollar by people like EP Taylor who would assume the brewery by paying its tax bill or prohibition default fines and shutting it down (Kuntz, Sleeman etc,) because they competed with his breweries. Much the same industry culture emerged in the US.

When Prohibition was fully lifted there remained about 20 North American brewers who survived who had the capacity to start up and supply 90% of the demand...the next 30 years were marked with deparate competition for national market share by cheapening product/process costs and consuming the competition.....EP Taylor's Canadian Breweries Ltd. alone consumed over 30 local and regional brewers between 1925 and 1968....he forced Molson and Labatt to do likewise to compete....Miller, Pabst, A-B, Lemp were similarly engaged in consuming any local competition that cut their market share.

In Canada EP taylor has done more to shape Canada's post prohibition beer, beer culture and industy than any single factor...and we still struggle in the shadow of the business model he used to make modern Canadian corporate beer....uniform, bland, cheap to make and nationally retailed branding.

The light at the end of the tunnel is that the modern Craft beer revival has also revived the idea of fresh beer brewed locally by a number of small local craft brewers...the Micro revolution is totally "local" as opposed to national and that difference alone allows the brewer to focus on quality, flavor, real freshness and traditional styles and proceses bacause their market is local and their capacity is geared to fast turn batches ( kegs)....they does not have to engage in the processes, formulas and ingredients the national macro brewers do to make their product safe for transport and longer shelf life.

So I think the pre-prohibition beer culture is being mirrored in the modern craft beer revolution and what we need to expand it is to deprogram the consumer conditioning of 60 years of corporate "white bread" national brand brewing which replaced the traditional local brands and craft brewer that existed here prior to prohibition.

Tapsucker wrote: Do we think Joe Sixpack will care? Probably not, Joe Sixpack feeds his kids Mc Crap and calls it a treat..

Actually, this week, Joe Sixpack is drinking Thomas Hooker Hop Meadow IPA...

Steve Beaumont wrote: Actually, this week, Joe Sixpack is drinking Thomas Hooker Hop Meadow IPA...

hmmm... must have run out of Yuengling.

Tapsucker wrote: I may be off base here, but I see the entire North American macro market in the same light as the factory food industry.

Definitely not off-base. For the most part I agree, and I've used the McDonalds/Macro analogy myself. There might be a cause/effect (chicken or egg?) thing here though.

I'd argue that prohibition was the cause. Despite the industrialization of food, most small towns still have private bakeries and restaurants.

Most people would probably agree that the bland/inoffensive flavour and consistent 'quality' is a common theme (personally I think the flavour of McDonalds & Blue are both a little offensive though).

My parents were born in he mid 40's, and while they do enjoy fresh bakeries, 9 times out of 10 they'll eat at McDonalds or Swiss Chalet rather than 'risk' something unknown (particularly when traveling).

Younger generations are different. Globalization provides more alternatives, but there's a skepticism of big corporations. Commercialization & branding just isn't what it used to be.

Economy of scale can't be overlooked though (I'm certainly guilty of frequenting big-box stores more than any ma & pa hardware store).

I wonder if legacy costs (pensions & U.S. health care) might bring down the big guys, like what's happening in the auto industry (though I gotta say, if Japanese imports take over, I'll have to step up my homebrewing!).

Times are changing, but it's good for us.

We've also got the population of urban areas overtaking the rural areas for the first time... So we now have population densities that'll support local production. (People in the boonies may have to continue to drink those pasteurized brews though).

hmmm... The economy of scale debate also touches the critical mass issue.
Many on this forum lament the lack of good US west coast style pale ales. While there is no real excuse, we do have to admit our entire country's economy is about the size of California's.
While I'm a big proponent of regionalism, brewers do need enough customers to survive and with Canada's idiotic interprovincial trade history, critical mass is always an issue.

I wish I could consider myself part of the new generation, but at over 40, I represent the old guard more than new. That said, when I travel I eat and drink local; I always have. Life is too short to miss the opportunity for new experiences. Mc Donald's and Heineken need not call on me for business...

While it was a hot business fad to discuss a few year's back, the so called long tail of the internet might someday finally benefit us beer lovers. If only regulations would allow more freedom of shipping...

One big difference between the industrial brewers in Germany and the industrial brewers here: diversification. The largest single brewing group in Germany owns about 11% if the national market share (contrasted to what? - 40-50% here). Diversification=competition=consumer choice=good value=mature marketplace=natural resistance to monopolization=healthy industry=investment in technology=evolution.

Pax.

Liam