Editorial Time!
Recently two very interesting and divergent news stories passed through my consciousness. The first, in the Oregonian, was on the state of microbrews in Oregon. The second was on NPR's Marketplace and was on the decline of breweries in Germany. They painted two very very different pictures. As the Oregonian piece will probably only be accessible for a week or so more I will summarize it briefly: beer consumption across the US is flat over 2003-2004, however microbreweries in the Pacific Northwest have seen strong growth, with several new breweries opening each year. Many established small breweries are seeing growth in the 10-15% range, with some even higher. Rogue brewery, in my opinion the best brewery in the country, managed a 33% increase in sales over 2003, despite expanding into no new domestic markets and seeing international sales drop 5%. So quality sells in the Northwest.
However German breweries are closing. Experts estimate there is a 30-40% overcapacity of production country wide, so more closures are expected. Young Germans are choosing wine and mixed drinks over beer. The situation for German breweries is so dire they are desperately trying to shore up market share by re-designing labels to make them more hip while introducing new flavored malt beverages to the market.
Most people are shocked to hear this, as Germany is considered a beer Mecca. However I am not in the least surprised one main reason. This may seem counter intuitive, however I pin the decline of the German beer industry directly on the German beer purity law, or Rheinheitsgebot of 1516. This protectionist piece of legislation has successfully made it difficult to import beer in Germany for many years. However now it has completely stifled any creativity in the beer industry. I just posted a review of Rogue's Half-e-Weizen, which, as it includes coriander and ginger, could not be sold as beer in Germany. It was delicious. German beer is limited. You can't make out there experimental microbrews, nor can you make a cheap, piss water macro. My beer world has room for both of those things. Germany does not. As a result young people are looking elsewhere for their drinks.
As a brief aside let it not be said that the German drinking public is too high brow to drink crazy beer mixtures. While my mother was in Germany recently her hosts would routinely drink beer at lunch. But it was not unadulterated beer. Instead a popular drink was "dirty beer" a pitcher half full of beer, half full of coke. Also popular was beer and lemonade, also popular with Londoners. A pity, that Rheinheitsgebot.
Unlike some smarmy newspapers, I'm going to sign my editorials.
Kenji Spielman,
Drunkard in Chief
However German breweries are closing. Experts estimate there is a 30-40% overcapacity of production country wide, so more closures are expected. Young Germans are choosing wine and mixed drinks over beer. The situation for German breweries is so dire they are desperately trying to shore up market share by re-designing labels to make them more hip while introducing new flavored malt beverages to the market.
Most people are shocked to hear this, as Germany is considered a beer Mecca. However I am not in the least surprised one main reason. This may seem counter intuitive, however I pin the decline of the German beer industry directly on the German beer purity law, or Rheinheitsgebot of 1516. This protectionist piece of legislation has successfully made it difficult to import beer in Germany for many years. However now it has completely stifled any creativity in the beer industry. I just posted a review of Rogue's Half-e-Weizen, which, as it includes coriander and ginger, could not be sold as beer in Germany. It was delicious. German beer is limited. You can't make out there experimental microbrews, nor can you make a cheap, piss water macro. My beer world has room for both of those things. Germany does not. As a result young people are looking elsewhere for their drinks.
As a brief aside let it not be said that the German drinking public is too high brow to drink crazy beer mixtures. While my mother was in Germany recently her hosts would routinely drink beer at lunch. But it was not unadulterated beer. Instead a popular drink was "dirty beer" a pitcher half full of beer, half full of coke. Also popular was beer and lemonade, also popular with Londoners. A pity, that Rheinheitsgebot.
Unlike some smarmy newspapers, I'm going to sign my editorials.
Kenji Spielman,
Drunkard in Chief
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