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Battle of the Craft Brewers: US v UK
The Boston Tea Party, as we all know, is the brouhaha that sparked the American Revolution. But had history waited a couple more weeks, the brew at the flashpoint between the Brits and the Americans could easily have been beer and not tea. For, in the late 18th century, ale had become as much a bone of contention between the two nations as a good ol’cup of splosh. A thriving American brewing scene was undermining British imports and so they flooded the market with cheap beer which, in turn, was boycotted by the Americans.
Now, almost 300 years later, another beer-related storm is brewing between the Yanks and the Limeys. A battle of brewing brains and brawn. A rivalry that makes the War of Independence seem like a playground scuffle. In the star-spangled corner you have the American microbrewing scene. What it lacks in history and heritage it makes up for in spiralling sales, rampant innovation and infectious enthusiasm. And then, in the red, white and blue corner stands a UK craft brewing market fighting fit. While the mainstream beer market is on the ropes, boutique real beers with flavour and character are punching well above their weight.
But when it comes to brewing beer, which nation is the best? The UK or the US? When stood toe-to-toe will the Brits show this young Yankee whippersnapper a thing or two? Or will the Americans simply open a can of Whoop-Ass on their old-skool opponents? Seconds out…..
Round One: Sales/Market Performance
USA: The US craft beer scene is in great shape. Following a brief shake-out in the mid-nineties when bandwagon jumpers fell away, the craft beer market is keener and leaner than ever before.
Craft beer production has increased annually for 35 consecutive years and is now woth a total of $6.3billion. In teh first six months of 2009, mainstream beer sales fell by 1.3% but, in the same period, craft brewing expanded in value and volume to the tune of 5% and 9% respectively- making it the quickest-growing segment of the alcoholic beverage industry.
“At a time when many of the giant beer brands are declining, small and independent craft brewers are organically growing their share and slowly gaining shelf and restaurant menu space one glass of craft beer at a time," said Paul Gatza, Director of the Brewers Association. “The U.S. now boasts 1,525 breweries, the highest number in 100 years when consolidation and the run up to Prohibition reduced the number of breweries to 1,498 in 1910.
Score: 8/10
UK: Not long ago, profitable and successful small-scale breweries were, like a lazy stingray, very thin on the ground.
But not anymore. Thanks in part to the introduction of a sliding scale beer duty introduced in 2002 by Gordon Brown, boutique beer producers have been able to loosen their purse strings a little and invest more heavily in infrastructure, ingredients and advertising. This has neatly dovetailed with a general and increased interest in locally produced food and drink and a growing disillusionment with big brands.
British beer drinkers have never had it so good. Pubs may be shutting at a rate of around 52 a week but cask ale, now firmly in the hands of regional and local craft brewers, is expected to return to growth in 2009. Supermarket shelves are sagging under the weight of bottled British beers and, according to SIBA (the Society of Independent Brewers), the local brewing industry grew by 7% in both 2007 and 2008 with turnover up by 20%.
Nearly six out of ten SIBA members have reported growth in excess of ten per cent while more than a third of brews saw production volumes grow by more than 20 per cent.
“The Cask Report: Britain’s National Drink”, compiled by leading beer marketing maestro Pete Brown, and backed by a number of regional brewers and ale-related trade bodies, revealed that, after several years in decline, sales of cask beer are on the up while other beer styles are suffering in the recession. “Turnaround stories don’t get much better than that of cask beer,” said Pete Brown. “In a shrinking on-trade beer market, cask is the only category to show growth, albeit modest, of 1% in the first half of 2009. Its share of the on-trade beer market now stands at 13.5%, up from 11% in 2007.
Score: 8/10
Round Two: History & Heritage
USA: America’s beer heritage may not stretch back as far as that of the United Kingdom, but beer flows through American history like the Mississippi River.
The Founding Fathers loved a swift half or two. The beards were a giveaway. George Washington, for example, was a huge fan of Porter and brewed beer at Mount Vernon before the revolutionary war, Thomas Jefferson is said to have written parts of the Declaration of Independence over a couple of ales in the Indian Queen Tavern, Philadelphia, and Benjamin Franklin famously declared: "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."
The US microbrewing scene peaked during the late 19th century. In 1876, there were 2,700 breweries in the United States. Many of them were modest, serving a restaurant or a neighbourhood.
100 years later they’d all but disappeared – slashed by Prohibition and replaced by just 40 breweries slaking the thirst of an entire country of more than 240million with big, bland, yellow fizz sold on advertising not taste.
It wasn’t until the late 1970s and early 1980s, when homebrewing was legalized and imports from Europe began arriving, that the backlash began and the foundations of the current microbrewing industry were laid down. So compared to Britain, the Stateside brewing scene is barely out of short trousers.
Score: 3/10
UK: The Brits win the history round hands down because, well, they simply have more of it. An ancient tribe called the Picts, who knocked about from around 500BC, are widely attributed as the first brewers on British soil. English legislation regarding the selling of ale goes back to AD616 when Ethelbert was king of Kent.
The oldest brewery in Britain dates back to the 17th century, Burton breweries have been going since 1777 while Belhaven in Scotland was established in 1719. And, despite a few blips here and there, craft brewing has kept going since then. Ironically, just as the Americans were getting their act together in the 1970s, Britain’s artisan beer scene was on its knees. Thankfully CAMRA stepped in with its sandals, saved real ale and small brewing from oblivion and kept the wheels of brewing history turning. Good on them.
Score: 9/10
Round Three: People per Brewery
You do the math.
USA:
Number of Craft Breweries: 1,525
Size of Population: 304,059,724
People Per Brewery: 199,383
Score: 7/10
UK:
Number of Craft Breweries: 700 (approx)
Size of Population: 61,399,118
People Per Brewery: 87,713
Score: 9/10
Round Four: Innovation and Diversity
USA: American craft brewers push more envelope than Postman Pat on amphetamines.
Having started out with a brewing Tabula Rasa in the 1970s and born with the desire to be different, the American microbrewing fraternity have thrown caution to the wind and passionately replicated European beer styles with a twist. The difference being that, of course, the American versions are bolder, louder and brasher.
Smoke-flavoured beers; herb and spice infused- brews; American-style Hefewieizens; wood and barrel-aged beers; big and brash barley wines; pre-Prohibition lagers, honey beers and experimental ales brewed with pomegranate, coriander, beetroot and Kaffir leaves represent just a drop in America’s bucket of brewing creativity.
Score: 10/10
UK: The commercial risks of brewing leftfield beers in the UK are much greater than they are on the other side of the pond. Up until relatively recently, the British beer drinking public has been reticent to swap its chilled pint of lager or its tankard of real ale for something a bit different.
However, the likes of Thornbridge, Brewdog, Harviestoun and Meantime – to name but four maverick microbrewers – are now broadening British drinker’s beer horizons with new interpretations of old styles, increased experimentation with ingredients, barrel-ageing and a youthful zeal that simply wasn’t around ten years ago.
Brewdog, who have been mischievously poking the mash-forks into the brewing establishment and inspired by the American craft scene, recently broke new brewing ground with Tactical Nuclear Penguin, the strongest beer in the world created using techniques traditionally associated with Eisbock style beers. With an ABV of 32%, it surpassed the previous record-holder, a German beer called Schorschbraer, by 1%.
New wave brewers such as Brewdog may have set the benchmark in terms of innovation but, let’s face it, there’s plenty of room for more derring-do.If America is Jackson Pollock then the UK is Rolf Harris.
Score: 6/10
Round Five: Availability of Craft Beer
USA: Regardless of where one finds oneself in America, notwithstanding a handful of “squeal like a pig” Southern states, one is never far from a locally produced craft beer.
A vast number of small breweries have a direct route to market in the shape of brewpubs. Of the 1,500 plus craft breweries in America, 927 are brewpubs serving freshly brewed beer to a captive and eager audience.
For those brewers without venues, route to market is relatively open. A three-tier distribution system where by an independent distributor acts as a middle-man between brewer and bar or retailer ensures that, in principal, craft beer competes on a level playing field with the big players. What’s more, the Americans don’t tend to make cask beer, a style that generally must be drunk within three or four days of opening.
The choice at liquor stores is far more eclectic than anything you’d find in the UK while only the most neon of sports bars would fail to include a beer of distinction behind the counter. If you want craft beer in the US you can pretty much get it.
Score: 7/10.
UK: Access to market is the biggest bugbear of the local brewing community. You can understand their frustration. On the one side you’ve got a wealth of great beers, dotingly brewed by passionate local producers. While on the other, you’ll find a consumer yearning and willing to pay a premium price for genuine, locally-produced, natural food and drink.
However market access issues have stopped the two from meeting each other. Penetration within the pub companies, mostly owned by banks not brewers, is constrained by the beer tie while many insist on centralised distribution through one of the big three logistic companies.
However, in a rather ironic twist, the woeful state of the pub business seems to have played into the hands of the small guys. Unable to coax people from their comfy sofas with brands that are available at half the price in supermarkets, pubs are increasingly turning to more bespoke beer offerings and realising that good better attracts a “better” class of punter with a “better” bank balance.
While the bottleneck of distribution is undoubtedly widening thanks to farmer’s markets, online access and switched-on pub companies and supermarkets, enlightened drinkers are still better off hunting craft beers than waiting for the beers to find them.
Score: 6/10
Round Six: Marketing
USA: Such is the marketing skill of US craft brewers, they could steal the shirt of your back, cut off the arms and then persuade you to buy it back for the price of a large mansion in Manhattan.
If you don’t believe me, simply visit the websites of New Belgium Brewing or the Rogue Brewery (owned by a former Nike director), take a peek at the labels of Sierra Nevada or Denver’s Flying Dog Brewery, designed by the infamous Ralph Steadman, marvel at the unique bottle design of the Anchor Steam Brewery in San Francisco or stand back and applaud the self-promotion of maverick headbrewer Sam Caglione at the Dogfish Head Brewery in Delaware.
The craft brewing community recently pulled off a marketing masterstroke in the shape of this collaborative video that showcases the integrity, passion and camaraderie of American craft brewing. http://www.vimeo.com/4298464
Score: 8/10
UK: Craft beer marketing in the UK has certainly improved. Thankfully teh days when lazy brewers were happy to scrawl clichéd beer names on badly designed pump clips have, in general, been left behind. But from pump clips to bottles and glassware to websites, British craft beer remains more Granddad than Gorillaz and few have embraced social media, twitter and all that webular t’internet carry on.
Score: 7/10
Round Seven: Brewing Expertise
N.B. This round required a technical judge in the shape of Alastair Hook, brewmaster at Meantime Brewing and an authority on US microbrewing.
Alastair: “The Americans have taken huge strides in recent years to improve the consistency and quality of their beers. So much so that now, technically and creatively, I’d argue that they just have the edge on the British,” he said. “In terms of brewing science, things are pretty uniform globally. But American craft brewing has been born out of a huge homebrewing culture and, as such, it’s acquired knowledge of many different beer styles.
“Also, 95 per cent of the beer is packaged product and that requires brewers to produce a much more stable product than cask conditioned ale which, generally, is less technically challenging to produce.”
Score: USA: 7/10 UK: 6/10
Round Eight: Cask/Real Ale
USA: While cask ale is available in the US, it’s rarer than rocking horse doo-doo with only a two per cent share of the market. It has neither the history nor the weather for it. So, in short, a poor round for the Doodle Dandys.
Score: 1/10
UK: You can take your heavily hopped bottled IPAs, you can have your wacky names and fancy marketing but, let’s face it, there’s nothing in the world of beer that can beat a expertly brewed, exquisitely served and exceptional-tasting pint of cask ale.
Matured, refermented, unpasteurised and unfiltered and brimming full of flavour, it’s a life-affirming experience that is quintessentially British and one that any right-minded American beer drinker would donate his/her right arm.
Score: 10/10
Round Nine: Festivals
USA: Each September, unbeknown to those outside the inner circles of beer geekdom, a pilgrimage is made to the Great American Beer Festival (GABF) in Denver.
Like obsessive Elvis impersonators going to Graceland and star-spotters heading for the Hollywood Hills, beer devotees from around the globe breathlessly converge on Colorado in search of a spiritual Rocky Mountain high.
In Denver, the demographic is significantly younger and funkier, there are less bellies, and while beards are aplenty, they’re of the Brad Pitt rather than Brian Blessed variety.
Also, it’s more inclusive with small breweries rubbing shoulders with the big players who, conveniently, pretty much fund the event.
Score: 9/10
UK: There’s plenty of beer at the Great British Beer Festival, held in Earls Court each August, but with the socks and sandals brigade there in force, it does nothing to distance the drink from its rather unfashionable connotations. However, you have to hand it to CAMRA for its regional festivals which act as excellent showcases for the national drink up and down the country.
Score: 8/10
Round Ten: All Round Skills
USA: The state of America’s beer has never been better than it is today. As a brewing nation, it has come full circle since the heyday of the late 1800s when there were 2,700 craft breweries in the United States.
Following a much-needed shake-out of a number of money-grabbing, bandwagon-jumping brewers ten years ago, craft beer is now populated by enduring and endearing small businesses on a mission to brew distinctive, hand-crafted beers.
For some, the beers can often be a little too distinctive and, as a British beer drinker, one sometimes craves a simple, easy-drinking, mildly hopped, mid-gravity beer. But that’s like criticising Brazil for playing football with too much flair. It’s not what they’re about.
In terms of the future, the Holy Grail for the microbrewing community is a ten per cent share of the beer market. If current growth trends continue, this figure is by no means unachievable but distribution is becoming increasingly tight and retailers are becoming increasingly demanding.
What’s more, the big brewers such as Coors and Anheuser-Busch have yet to really show their teeth with consolidation and brewery buy-ups so far an exception rather than a rule. Let’s hope it stays that way.
Score: 8/10
UK: Certain parallels can be drawn between what’s taking place over here with what occurred in the States twenty years ago; an organic consumer thirst for local produce and a certain disillusionment with the big and the bland.
What’s more, the British microbrews are well-placed to ride the wave of renewed interest in all things beer. With national breweries becoming international, regional brewers becoming “super-regional” by developing nationwide distribution, this growing demand for local beer is increasingly being met by micro and local breweries.
There’s still a lot of work to do in the areas of marketing, image, reverence and, most importantly, access to market but, with sector growth earmarked for next year, UK craft beer’s pint glass is now half-full not half-empty.
Score: 8/10
And The Winner is: By virtue of the fact that it won five out of the ten rounds, the USA is the proud holder of the craft brewing belt. But with British craft beer firmly in the ascendancy, there’s already talk of a rematch.
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