september 2008 ? issue twelve always more online @ eatdrinkmag.net 45 BEER

What's Brewing in Craft Beer Culture

By The Malt Monk Iam departing from my routine of beer style focus in order to talk about the craft beer industry. Some emerging trends may dictate what we will be drinking in the coming decade. Brewing history has taken some surprising twists and turns due mainly to coping with brewing taxes, technology and distance. Today, it is the beer culture evolution and its demand which drives changes in brewing. Who could have guessed, while sipping on their ice cold Budweiser in 1980, that in less than two decades North America would have over 2000 small independent and local breweries brewing every style imaginable? Independent local craft brewers are now making 10 million barrels of craft beer yearly. Who thought the demand for upscale import beer would expanded the LCBO's import list from approximately 20 imports to the hundreds it now stocks? Canada's beer culture has changed. It's upscale, its affluent and it wants good beer. National Brand Beer Is Out, Fresh Local Micro Brewed Beer Is In North America's large established corporate national brewers have seen their long time flagship brands' sales slump. This has precipitated mergers and acquisitions as well as a focus on the "budget beer? and "fad beer? market. Meanwhile, local independent macro and microbrewers have been gaining market share at between 2% to 5% a year in the last decade and in some local markets, craft beer sales take 15% market share. People have discovered that fresh, traditionally crafted beer tastes better. Micro Brewing Discovers the Humble Lager Well, actually a rediscovery of traditional lagers and other German beer styles. After focusing on traditional ales for two decades, craft breweries seem to be rushing to get a traditional or intensified crafted lager into production. In the US, some of the most popular Micro brews are now lagers such as Brooklyn Lager and Anchor Steam. In Canada, we are a bit ahead of that curve due to our long tradition of pioneer Lager brewing in south central Ontario. Craft brewers like Creemore were first on line with traditional lagers but now brewers like Grand River Brewing, Lion Brewery, King, Brick, Nickel Brook, Great Lakes, Robert Simpson and others now offer an array of traditionally styled Helles, Viennas, Bocks, dark lagers and Pilsner craft lagers. Beer drinkers have responded by buying it up. Import Beer Expansion Canada's maturing beer culture has been constantly expanding demand for world class imported beer. Driving demand is the beer fancier's desire to taste the "original? brewer of a famous style or brand of beer and to satisfy a taste for a wider variety of traditional European styles and big tasting US Micro beers. The LCBO now has vastly expanded its standard available import beers but has also added seasonal rotating offerings of a dozen or so non-standard imports four times yearly. Demand for wider import variety continues and I wonder if the LCBO will allow some private importers to fill the niche for these beers in kegged draft form. I see this as a large growth area in the coming years.

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