By Gregg Glaser
Published January 2009, Volume 29, Number 6
Lost
If it’s Wednesday, It Must be Belgium (or is that Brazil?)
What happened to big U.S. breweries being owned by Americans? (Correct that to North Americans; no, we need to be more specific—North Americans who are citizens of the U.S.A.). Well, there’s no need to be jingoistic about it, but here’s the scorecard and it’s bloody confusing:
SABMillerCoorsMolson
The SAB stands for South African Breweries (with HQ in London, not Johannesburg). A few years ago this brewer bought Miller to form SABMiller. A few years later Coors merged with Molson of Canada to form MolsonCoors. This year Miller merged with Coors to form MillerCoors.
A-B-InBev
Earlier this year, Anheuser-Busch gave in to an almost-hostile takeover from the world’s biggest brewer, InBev (which itself is the result of a merger a few years ago of giant Belgian brewer Interbrew with Ambev, a giant Brazilian brewer). By the end of 2008, InBev was supposed to have swallowed A-B, but the international monetary crisis may or may nor scuttle that deal.
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By Rick Lyke
Published November 2008, Volume 29, Number 5
The U.S. presidency carries with it an awesome amount of power and responsibility. That’s the case whether you are talking about nuclear arms—or beer.
Public policy shapes everything from the price to the availability of the beer we enjoy. Whether it is a new tax on beer or farm subsidies, politics have an impact on the brewing industry. Sometimes the changes are subtle, in other cases, such as Prohibition, the impact can dramatic.
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By Lew Bryson
Published March 2008, Volume 29, Number 1
We all know how craft beer history goes. Beer was great until the 19th century, when mass production of lagers took over the world, and American brewers put corn and rice in their beer to make it cheaper. By 1950, everyone was hypnotized by marketing into drinking the fizzy yellow beer. It looked bad, but Fritz Maytag saved us. “Microbreweries” made beer like beer used to be. Brewpubs made the freshest beer in the world. Then craft breweries made beer better than it used to be: hoppier, stronger, more sour, whoopee, everyone’s drinking it!
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At Home or Away, the Pub is About Its People
By Eileen McNamara
Published March 2008, Volume 29, Number 1
Walk through The Front Door in Galway and the ear-splitting volume of the music and the size of the fashionable crowd spilling between the first and second floors might deceive you into thinking that you have stumbled into a nightclub in Manhattan.
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By Greg Kitsock
Published July 2007, Volume 28, Number 3
A critic of America’s Noble Experiment once inveighed, “The only thing Prohibition has accomplished is that a man who wants a weak drink is compelled to take a strong one, and a man who wants a good drink is compelled to take a bad one.”
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By Roger Protz
Published January 2007, Volume 27, Number 6
There’s an old saying in England that when the ravens leave the Tower of London, the monarchy will fall. Is there, I wonder, a similar maxim in Ireland when sales of Guinness slump: the Blarney Stone turning to dust, perhaps?
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