America's Beer Revolution

For beer drinkers, the last decade has been an exciting one. It wasn't long ago that the only beers available nation-wide were the macro-brews of the Miller and Anheuser-Busch companies. Today's average grocery store selection has expanded immensely, enhanced by the presence of micro-brews and a wide variety of new styles from the major brewing companies.

I wish I had a picture of a beer aisle from 1999 so I could show you graphically how far we've come...

Some of the happiest changes in the beer market have been of the nature of discovery.

Small brewers like Samuel Adams and Sierra Nevada were given a chance to reach outside of their home territories (the east and west coasts, respectively), finding an enthusiastic national audience. Like debutantes, these beers have come out into the national-public eye and have been discovered.

We might reasonably say that the two marquee beers represented by Samuel Adams and Sierra Nevada have put hops into the American beer palate.

Ten years ago, lighter beers (pilsners) dominated the beer aisle by a huge margin. They still do, but to a lesser degree. Budweiser, Miller, MGD, and all the light varieties of these beers are all pilsners, whereas Samuel Adams and Sierra Nevada offer ales. (Pilsners tend to be light and, in America, often use rice or corn in the brewing process and finish with a very light presence of hops.)

The two ales (Sam Adams/Sierra Nevada) feature a very bright and strong presence of hops, which give the beer a bitter bite. The taste experience is quite different when we compare the American pilsners, like MGD, to the American craft ales of Sierra Nevada and Samuel Adams.

Several foreign beers have also become staples in beer aisles across America, reinforcing the changes in taste that we can see in the increased interest in the hoppy ales of Boston and Chico, CA.

For a while in the 2000's, Heineken seemed to be on top of the beer world. This so-called pilsner could be found at every beer store, at every party, and in every NFL commercial break. The Heineken era may not be over, but the Dutch beer no longer dominates the marketplace as it once did.

Becks and Stella Artois have both made a challenge to the Heineken dominance of the imported beer section of the beer market, establishing familiarity as well as loyalty in the beer communities of living rooms and garages all over the USA.

All the beer drinkers I know have tried each of these three imports and it doesn't seem to be too much of a stretch to imagine that every one of those beer drinkers has a favorite among the three.

Again, one decade ago this would have been impossible. Favoring one of these imports over another would have been the arena of a connoisseur, not the status quo for the average beer aficionado.

We look at the examples of Becks, Stella Artois, and Heineken because they have probably made the greatest impact and have come a long way from being the "high-end" imports they once were. Numerous imports are recognizable today also, as they would not have been a decade ago, including beers from Europe (Chimay) and Asia (Sapporo, Kirin).

Micro brews had yet to explode across the national beer market in 1999 and they were mainly available in the regions of their brewing.

Further exemplifying the growing market for craft and micro brews is the recent expansion of the New Belgium Brewing Company of Colorado. For a long time, Fat Tire Ale was available only west of the Mississippi river.

That is a geographical restriction of the past. Fat Tire is now a very popular beer in bars across the country. Akin to the taste-style of Newcastle Brown Ale, Fat Tire has syrupy quality and a rich amber color.

Like Newcastle, Fat Tire enjoys a wide popularity in part because of its subtle sweetness, very much the opposite of the Sierra Nevada Pale Ale discussed above, and the New Belgium Brewing Company is no longer such a "micro" brew operation.

(Perhaps we should mention here that Newcastle preceded Heineken in the American beer market, but never held the position of dominance and ubiquity that was for a while the hallmark of the Dutch green-bottled brew.)

While some micro-brews have gone macro and some imports have become widely popular, we have seen changes also in true craft-beer operations as some micro-brews, like Stone Brewing Company (Arrogant Bastard Ale), have found ways to distribute their beers nationally - largely in 20 and 24 ounce bottles - so that a craft beer sighting is far from rare today.

As beer tastes in America continue to change, the major beer producers experiment. Many of these experiments are met with derision, but we must at least applaud the willingness to try new things and to offer new products on the part of these established companies.

In recent years, Budweiser has released several beer drinks that have shifted our view of where the line is between a beer and a cocktail. With tomato-juice infusions and lime flavored offerings, Budweiser has led the way (dubiously perhaps) toward the development of a beer hybrid.

While many beer purists won't go for the lime beer, they may be happy to recognize the movement toward smaller batch craft beers offered by these same corporate beer brewers. Michelob's AmberBock and Budweiser's American Ale are both examples of macro-brews trying to employ the micro-brew model.

A final word on beer:

Ah, beer...every beer lover loves to love beer because it is good. It is a real pleasure to witness the expanding beer market in grocery stores and to recognize that, along with a general upswing in America's culinary sophistication, beer and our beer palates are coming along too.