02/14/2007

Americans and beer, a long-term alliance
By Don Klein
 
Beer is one of those contrasts in life, some may call it a perversion, because when it first passes over your palate it is bitter and unfriendly.  But once you acquire a taste for it, it is as refreshing and as pleasant a beverage as you will ever find. These qualities, plus the fact that it is the least expensive of all alcoholic potables, made beer through the ages the working man's drink.

Beer is also favored these days because it has less alcoholic content than whiskey or wine, has a better aroma than both and is less debilitating than the others providing it is not consumed in excessive quantities. 

Despite its vast popularity, you will find a version of beer in just about every civilized country in the world, its origins are a bit vague. It is one of the oldest beverages, believed to go back 10,000 years.

There are more than 2,000 beers in the world and at one time when micro-breweries were at their apex there were about 1,400 individual breweries in the United States. Of course the mass market breweries dominate the industry and are the ones that beer drinkers, and others, are most familiar with.

What is unique about beer is that almost every label has its own taste, even if just a subtle difference. Certain American cities have become identified with locally brewed beverages which have been distributed nationally. Milwaukee; Golden, CO; and St. Louis are world famous for their beers.

As a working man's favorite beverage, beer's future is inescapably attached to the decline of the traditional industrial nations. The mass market for beer in the U.S. is probably shrinking as it is in the traditionally beer-drinking nations of Europe. The corollary is as the laboring class declines so does beer sales..

It was not unusual to watch coal miners down 20 bottles of beer after a shift in the mines, or workers at the end of their sweaty factory shifts quenching their thirsts with endless beers, or for that matter, reporters at the end of a day packed with a series of stressful deadlines heading for the nearby pub to down a few.

Things have changed. Most mines are closed down and coal miners' sons and daughters have gone off to other less physically demanding jobs. The same is true of other industries, especially in the U.S. Reporters, who now insist on being called journalists, are more likely to end their days sipping genteel wine than roughhouse beer.

Nevertheless, beer is not going out of fashion.  Americans now consume about 84 liters per capita annually. Overall sales may be stagnant, but beer drinkers are loyal to their favorite beverage. Some people cannot get through the day without a beer, others enjoy it after work, and still others do not consider a meal complete without at least one beer to wash everything down.

There are all kinds of beers on the market. The variety is staggering. There are lagers, pale ale, barley wine, bock, all sorts of ales and ciders, Pilsners, ice beer, light beer, malt liquor, Mexican beer, oatmeal stout, porter, wheat beers, lager, dark beer, to name a few, all with their distinctive flavors. That is not even counting the myriad of imported beers available in most American stores.

Beer has been a part of American life from the very beginnings when Virginia colonists brewed ale from corn. In 1602 the first shipment of beer arrived from England for anxious Virginians. A few years later the colonist took the bull by the horns and advertised in English newspapers for brewers to come to the New World. In 1612 Adrian Block and Hans Christiansen established the first known brewery in North America on the southern tip of New Amsterdam (New York).

Then in 1620 when the Pilgrims arrived in Plymouth in the colony of Massachusetts, beer was in such short supply aboard the Mayflower that it almost caused a rift among colonists and crew. Selfishly, seamen forced the passengers ashore to ensure that they would have sufficient beer for their return trip to England.

Throughout history beer played an important part in New World social life. William Penn's colony erected a brewery near Bristol, PA and the first Philadelphia brewery was opened at Dock Street Creek in 1683. The brew was so important to George Washington in 1754 that he had copied a beer recipe in his notebook. The first brewery outside the 13 colonies was built in 1765 in a French settlement in what is now Illinois.

There was a time not too long ago when beer was considered by snobbish wine aficionados as being low class. But today you are just as likely to see a professor or a high priced attorney walking to his car with a six-pack and a bottle of wine. False class consciousness has given way to the taste of a chic beverage. 

The United States is the second largest consumer of beer on earth, China is first. In per capita consumption Ireland is first and Germany is second. The U.S is eighth.

Budweiser, Miller and Coors may dominate in volume, and middle-sized enterprises have had difficulty in surviving, but the United States today has more breweries than Germany. They make far more types of beer (more than 50 styles are judged at the Great American Beer Festival held in the fall in Colorado). Within any one style, they offer far greater variety of character.

Despite such genuine variety, the U.S. also imports many of Europe's finest beers, some of which could no longer survive on their domestic sales.          


Send an Email Letter to Courier Editor - be sure to include your telephone number.