Brewing Battles

Sound Bite

Brewing Battles is the comprehensive story of American beer and the American brewing industry, from its colonial beginnings to the present. Although today's beer companies have their roots in pre-Prohibition business, historical developments since Repeal have affected the industry over all, from individual brewers like Anheuser-Busch to the micro-brewers, and have influenced the tastes and habits of beer-drinking consumers as well. This book explains beer as a business and as a pleasure in America.

About the Book

From local and collegial to consolidated and competitive, the brewing industry followed a pattern that illustrates many of the changes that have taken place in the American business and cultural landscape over the past 100+ years.

Brewing Battles is the comprehensive story of the American brewing industry and its leading figures, from its colonial beginnings to the present. Although today’s beer companies have their roots in pre-Prohibition business, historical developments since Repeal have affected industry at large, brewers, and the tastes and habits of beer-drinking consumers as well. The story begins with the struggle of German immigrant brewers to establish themselves in America, within the context of federal taxation and a growing temperance movement, their losing battle against Prohibition, their rebirth and transformation into a corporate oligarchy, and the determination of home and micro brewers to reassert craft as the "raison d'etre" of brewing.

Brewing Battles looks at beer's cultural meaning from the vantage point of the brewers and their goals for market domination. Beer consumption changed over time, beginning with an alcoholic high in the early 19th century and ending with a neo-temperance low in the early 21st. The public places where people drank also changed from colonial ordinaries in peoples homes to the saloon and back to home via the disposable six pack. The book explores this story as brewers fought to create and control these changing patterns of consumption.

Drinking alcohol has remained a favored activity in American society and while beer is ubiquitous, our country harbors a persistent ambivalence about drinking. An examination of how the industry prevailed in a sometimes unreceptive environment exemplifies how business helps shape public opinion.

Brewing Battles reveals the complicated changes in the economic clout of the industry. Prior to the institution of the income tax in 1913 the liquor industry contributed over 50% of the federal government s internal revenue; 19th century temperance advocates portrayed the liquor industry as King Alcohol. Today their tax contribution is only 1% yet brewing actually has a much more pervasive influence, touching on almost every aspect of modern American life and contributing greatly to the GNP. Brewing Battles is this story.

Information

Listen to Amy's interview on KSKQ 89.5 FM in Ashland, Oregon, with Ginger Johnson on Women Enjoying Beer.In between some good fun beer-drinking tunes, she quickly outlines the experience of American beer brewers in relation to shifts in government policy, Prohibition and Repeal, and changes in the business environment including corporate consolidations starting late in the 20th century.