giftsilk.blogg.se

Yeah, I was gonna go back and edit my post ('cause I can never leave a post alone, that 15 minute edit period just calls me) with a postscript of something like:Ĭlick to expand.Yeah, I've always maintained that a whole lot of brewers might have survived if they could have competed in the "Craft era" when it was possible to sell domestically-brewed beer for more than the national macro brands' "premium-priced" beer, using better ingredients (more hops, more malt) and processes, etc., but back then the common wisdom in the industry was surviving meant brewing a lot of one kind of beer (adjunct lager) as near as possible to your brewery's capacity and sell it for less than the nationals' flagships - even though, economies of scale might have meant that their beer cost more to brew - higher labor costs (less automation), higher raw material expenses (lacking the quantity discounts the macros could get), etc. Was is just that economic pressure to survive meant constant corner cutting, speed-ups and cheaper ingredients by the several new owners each company experienced? Nowadays, I guess, they all dependent on co-packing, flavored beers/FMB's, and other beverages for the bulk of their production. It would take some research with access to private records to figure out why 3 of the surviving old line brewers (a very small percentage of the 50 or so left at the start of the "Craft Era"), Cold Spring, Minhas (Huber) and The Lion have such terrible reputations these days.Īs you note Huber's Augsburger and a few other beers (Regal Brau, Huber Bock) were well respected, Cold Spring has their Export distributed nationally by Merchant du Vin (I guess it might even have been brewed for MdV?) and I liked the Manhattan Gold and a few other early contract-crafts that came out of The Lion, as well as their Stegmaier Porter and Liebotschaner Cream Ale