Posted on 03/27/2006 5:30:51 PM PST by pissant
PORTLAND, Maine - Like most small breweries, Gritty McDuff‘s went through a lull as sales of craft beer leveled off in the late 1990s. Now Gritty‘s and the craft beer industry as a whole are enjoying a resurgence, with sales growing at their fastest pace in a decade.
At Gritty McDuff‘s, production last year rose nearly 30 percent to more than 250,000 gallons.
The 1990s were a boom time for the industry, with sales rising fast and even doubling in 1994. But growth slowed by the end of the decade, and hundreds of microbreweries and brewpubs went out of business.
"I think we‘ve learned that the beer industry doesn‘t have to grow in leaps and bounds, that it will grow steadily and slowly," Stebbins said.
But for consumers who demand more variety, there are craft beers. These beers, in general, are made with malted wheat or barley — without corn, rice or sugar adjuncts — and include ales, bocks, stouts, marzens, porters and other styles that can be light or dark in color and are typically more complex in taste.
The best-known craft beers are national brands like Samuel Adams or Sierra Nevada, but there are hundreds of small breweries nationwide that distribute their own brews locally and regionally. As of December, there were 1,368 breweries and brew pubs making craft beer, according to the Brewers Association trade group in Boulder, Colo.
"It was a good year for the high-end (beers), and we‘ll see where this goes," Shepard said.
But the market became saturated, growth stalled and craft beer production grew at rates from 0 to 4 percent a year from 1998 through 2003. More than 500 brew pubs and microbreweries closed between 2000 and 2004, outpacing the number of startups, according to the Brewers Association.
In Seattle, Georgetown Brewing Co. doubled its production last year to about 186,000 gallons. Georgetown‘s beers, a pale ale and a pilsner, are sold at more than 380 bars and restaurants, or about double the number of a year ago.
"I think it‘s a maturing of the customer base," Chopp said. "First of all people didn‘t know there was anything out there, and once they tried it they like it."
The aging of America helps to explain the market shift, said Ray Daniels, director of marketing for the Brewers Association. Baby boomers are edging up toward senior status, and the median age of the U.S. population grew from 32.8 in 1990 to 36.2 in 2004, according to the Census Bureau .
"I think ultimately as consumers get older their tastes are more sophisticated," Daniels said. "And that‘s a big part of the growing interest in the category."
Much of the craft beer growth is coming out of regional breweries — rather than brew pubs that have tiny breweries on the premises. It‘s the breweries that produce the bottled beer and kegs for restaurants, bars and retail stores.
In Maine, more than two dozen companies of varying sizes brew their own beer. They made nearly 3 million gallons last year, a 30 percent increase in three years, according to the Bureau of Alcoholic Beverages.
Gritty McDuff‘s — the third-largest brewer in Maine behind The Shipyard Brewing Co. and D.L. Geary Brewing Co. — has most of its sales in Maine, but its out-of-state markets are growing. It now sells beer in 70 stores and bars in Massachusetts, up from less than 20 a year ago. This spring, its products will be sold in New Hampshire for the first time.
Distributors are taking greater notice of craft beers, Stebbins said, making it easier to get Gritty‘s beers on store shelves and in bars.
"They see the numbers. They see the trends," he said. "So they‘re planning their marketing around those trends."
The best I ever had was Krusovice - dark Czech beer, supposedly started by the Emperor Rudolph II in the mists of time. I knew he dabbled in alchemy, but who would think he was a brewer?
If their dark beer is as good as their pilsners, you tasted a winner!
To my taste it is better than their pilsners.
LOL. Some of the WORST beer I've had has been homebrew. Out of about 50 or 60 I've had the "pleasure" of tasting, all of about three were palatable.
I'm sure yours is good though!
Well, they do make pilsners at least on par with the Germans. But I'll see if I can find the mysterious dark concoction of which you speak.
You could find it everywhere in Prague, and probably in Vienna as well. I doubt it is exported much further afield.
LOL. You are the first home brewer to try to duplicate Keystone Ice. ;o)
Pilsner Urquell (Czech Republic) is a good beer.
Correction. A GREAT beer. ;o)
Good thing you stay home to drink it then! You'd be a hazzard on the road!
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