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 Charles D. Cook
Published January 2009, Volume 29, Number 6
Walk into a good multi-tap bar these days or, especially, a good beer retail store, and Belgium rules. A beer lover shopping for new flavors is confronted with bewildering choices: bottles that are corked and wired in the manner of champagne, beers that claim religious connections and others with fruit incongruously depicted. The labels, written in Flemish or French, may display examples of the cartoons for which the Belgians are famous, but the high prices of some of these brews are no joking matter. Faced with expanding choices, how to choose?
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By Randy Mosher
Published January 2009, Volume 29, Number 6
I’m not much for soda pop. To my taste, most of it is bland, mass-market stuff lacking in real character or subtlety. But in researching old beers, I’ve seen references to earlier “soft” drinks, not entirely alcohol-free, brewed for refreshment and hydration. While ginger and root beers are still made today, other old school brews popular a century ago such as hop bitters and dandelion stout have fallen out of favor. Called “botanic brews,” these bitter, complex beverages were popular from the second half of the nineteenth century well into the twentieth.
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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 Roger Protz
Published November 2008, Volume 29, Number 5
Poland has a cruel nickname: “The country on wheels.” For most of the 19th and 20th centuries, it was ruled by Austro-Hungary, Russia and Germany, and then became a satrapy of the Soviet Union for 50 grim years. Its modern borders bear little relation to the ones it enjoyed a century and a half ago. Is it any wonder that its brewing traditions have been fashioned more by foreign intervention than by indigenous styles?
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By Julie Johnson Bradford
Published November 2008, Volume 29, Number 5
It’s a Saturday afternoon in October at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, on the final day of the Great American Beer Festival. When the doors open for the sold-out members’ session at 12:30, several thousand members of the Brewers Association or the American Homebrewers Association flood in. Cups and programs in hand, they start making the rounds of the beer booths, where over 1,900 beers from 400 American breweries are available for sampling. This is the biggest, oldest beer festival in the country, and the selection is unrivaled.
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