Beer: Mass-Produced vs. Micro-Brewed
Beer has been around for a long time. Experts date its origin back to pre-Roman days. It's been enjoying a renaissance here in the United States since the early eighties. In its simplest form beer is water, hops, malt and yeast. And yet, in most pubs and neighborhood taverns, the battle lines are drawn. Old favorites like Bud and Miller are jockeying for tap space with the likes of Sam Adams and Yuengling. Some background may be in order here. There are three major styles of beer- ale, lager and "other". Lets examine each. The most popular beer in the world is pilsner, which is a type of lager. Some examples are the above-mentioned Budweiser, but the most famous pilsner in the world is Pilsner Urquell. First brewed in 1840 in the town of Pilsen in what is now known as the Czech Republic, Pilsner Urquell literally means "original source". It is the beer that almost every mass-produced American beer manufacturer aspires to. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, this beer is available in the United States and I've been fortunate enough to sample it on draft. It's the perfect example of a micro-brewed beer that the mass-producers try to imitate. A second type of lager that's very popular all around the world is helles. A popula
Twenty years ago, people were beginning to stop using the mildly irritating term, "boutique breweries," in favor of microbrewery or craft brewery, which more clearly defines what's going on. The Institute of Brewing Studies helpfully established a benchmark. Brewing no more than 15,000 barrels a year qualified you as a micro. Regional brewers were over that figure, though shy of the barrelage that would put them in the mass-producers league. To really appreciate that amount of beer, consider that Anheuser-Busch in 1870 was already brewing 18,000 barrels a year, by 1901, over a million. r brand that really represents this style is Heineken. A mass produced that utilizes this style is the Mexican beer, Corona. No discussion on beer would be complete without analyzing Anheuser-Busch, brewers of Budweiser and Michelob. This mass producer is probably single-handedly responsible for the rift between the two sides. They already are the largest producer of beer in the world and yet continually try to buy up small micros in an attempt at total domination. Illegal? Hardly, not in today's frenzy of takeovers and acquisitions. Naively perhaps, but I hope they're doing it to improve their line of beers, most of which are watery and unimaginative. Bedell, Thomas. The future is theirs, All About Beer Magazine, Nov 1996 In its monthly statistics, the IBS has the unfortunate duty of reporting the failure rate for US microbreweries as one in every eight. For several years now, brewers have been bugged by the recurring question: "Is there a saturation point, in terms of beer or breweries?" Everyone seems to think there must be one, but no one sees it on the immediate horizon. One of the problems I see is the battle looming over what to call brewpubs. Brewpubs are
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Approximate Word count = 1189
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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