Check out a listing of the best-selling American beers and you’ll notice a common theme. Virtually all look and taste the same. The inventory includes items such as Bud Light, Miller Lite, Budweiser, Busch Light, Coors Light, Corona, and Heineken. Each beer is golden in color, fizzy, and lacking in abundant flavor. Although my personal bias probably is evident, I cannot deny that these beers are doing something very right. They dominate the American scene and apparently offer what the majority of drinkers desire. The ubiquity of these brands hardly makes them bad beers; indeed, they are expertly constructed. A Budweiser in Los Angeles tastes precisely the same as one consumed in Detroit and another purchased in Atlanta. Consistency has been perfected, and there is comfort in using products that offer reliability. Hey, if you’re a fan of these beers, you shouldn’t be criticized or feel guilty for not being a part of the revolution in the industry. At least once a week, someone approaches me almost apologetic for admitting a liking of a mass-marketed beer. You don’t have to explain your choices to anyone. My purpose is to attempt to introduce you to some of the newer options on hand and provide choices. Remember that many of the very small breweries in this country operate on a shoestring budget and don’t advertise. They rely on information circulated via some of the means mentioned previously, such as “beeriodicals,” websites, and festivals to get the word out. I’ve heard it said that companies like Anheuser-Busch probably spill more beer in one day than most microbreweries produce in a year.
What’s been happening in the beer industry now is a natural growth from the birth of the craft-brewing scene in the late 1970s. I actually had gotten away from drinking much beer at that time. I just felt that either the sector or I was in a rut. It was kind of like that old Peggy Lee song, “Is That All There Is?” I experimented with other beverages, but kept coming back to my drink of choice, just in lesser amounts.
My epiphany occurred in Washington, DC, when an acquaintance brought me to a place called The Brickskeller, lovingly described as a “hole in the wall.” More beautiful words could not be spoken. This absolutely mesmerizing establishment featured over a thousand different beers from around the world. You could buy anything from Louisiana’s Abita Amber to Poland’s Zywiec, with plenty in between. And yes, they even sold Budweiser. I remember walking through that place, looking at the overabundance of beer bottles—brands that neither of us had heard of—wondering what I had stumbled into. My friend became my guru, and he was about to take me on my first psychedelic experience.
I think I drank a Grolsch at the time because everything else seemed so bizarre to me. As I sipped that first beer, I couldn’t help but wonder if beers like these would become the impetus for massive change. Little did I know what an understatement that would turn out to be!
I became so turned on by the explosion of flavors that I started buying beers from companies that were unfamiliar to me. If I liked the label art or if the brewery had a distinct name, I tried it. It was a throwback to the times when I would buy an album (remember those?) because of the band name or the artwork.
In time, I became enthralled by stories of the creation of these very small breweries, many times run as single-person operations. There are accounts from all over the country, all around the world, actually, of people who invested in a dream. As an example, let’s look at little Harlem Brewing Company of New York.
Celeste Beatty, a saxophonist, had a long-standing interest in beer and had actively been homebrewing for a few years. Her interest in the craft led her to start a brewery, after preparing numerous test batches. Because the name for her initial brew would be critical, research was done and focus groups were established to evaluate her beverage. The Sugar Hill district, in the extreme northern part of Manhattan, was home to such notables as Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington, who in his signature song “Take the ‘A’ Train (To Sugar Hill)” was describing an affluent neighborhood. Although some people associated the area with the Sugarhill Gang, a hip-hop group who gained national recognition in 1979, “most reflected on the legacy and history of Duke Ellington and all the greats of the day,” according to Ms. Beatty. With that, Sugar Hill Golden Ale was born and a distribution contract was signed.
Accounts like this are everywhere, and it is this sort of thing that is driving the beer business. Not every company will achieve financial success; many will fail. Yet there is no mistaking that fact that this is a wonderful time to be a lover of this remarkable beverage.