04/27/2015   English German

  Edition # 111  
San Francisco, 04-27-2015


Figure [1]: Twelve Dollars for 4 pints of beer? Only in America.

Michael The history of beer brewing in the United States can be divided up into three distinct periods. Until about 1985, we had the watery age, when all across the country all one could find was the thin, tasteless beer made by the major brewing companies. Joe Schmoe washed down Budweiser or Coors, while European tourists and a few local demanding customers ordered Mexican or Dutch imports like Corona or Heineken. Then, towards the end of the 80ies, a major movement started, and a few rebellious young entrepeneurs began disrupting the beer market by producing so-called microbrews. Tiny breweries, run by dedicated hobbyists, put a lot of love and effort into crafting their own beers, and started selling them to their enthusiastic followers.

Figure [2]: To each his own: Pumpkin beer sold at 5.79 Dollars per bottle.

Nowadays, every truck stop sells microbrew beer, and in San Francisco, you'd be hard pressed to order Budweiser without being pointed and laughed at, except maybe in sports bars. The fight's been fought now, and the microbrews won, but it has been dragging on for several decades to get to this point. One of the major obstacles is the alcohol distribution system in the United States, which has been strictly regulated by the government since prohibition times. Until today, it's pretty tough for small breweries to get their brews on supermarket shelves. Why? Distributing alcohol at a wholesale level in the U.S. requires a state license only granted to big distributors, who of course scoff at small mom and pop brewers producing a few thousand gallons a year, when they can much more efficiently move hundreds of millions of gallons sold by one of the large-scale industrial brewing companies. The documentary Beer Wars sheds some light behind the scenes of big beer business and illustrates some of the disastrous implications this has for innovators in the brewing business.

Figure [3]: Always been a bit on the expensive side: Beer from Belgium.

But it's no secret that Americans never stop improving, and sometimes they even go over the top, up to the point where you ask yourself if that was really such a smart idea. The German beer purity law is naturally unknown here and left to their own devices, some breweries cook up the craziest combinations that no one in their right mind can enjoy anymore.

For example, whenever we're on vacation in Hawaii, I enjoy the beer made by the local "Kona" brewery, which, similiarily to the well-known Gordon Biersch Brewing Company, composes simple classic but very well-crafted beers. But I almost fell out of my chair last time we were there, when in a super saver package from Costco, I opened a sixpack of a variety called "Koko Brown" which tasted so absurdly of coconut that I couldn't get down more than one sip, poured the rest of the bottle into the sink and left the remaining five bottles for the next tenant at the vacation home.

Figure [4]: Craft beer on sale for 6.89 Dollars per bottle.

As you might know, German vintners love to belittle the products of American wineries, calling them "Coca Cola Wines", because they're produced under less strict food and drink regulations than in Germany, giving American vintners the advantage of being able to explore all kinds of artificial taste enhancement methods. For example, every vineyard in Napa Valley uses wooden pallets of different flavors, strewn into the barrels to build out heavy red wines. That would be illegal in Germany! Along the same lines, some of the new hipster beers are enriched with elderberries, grapefruit, pumpkin flavor, and all kinds of artificial secret ingredients thought up by trendy American breweries. Those beers create such a complex taste sensation that I guess their primary purpose is not to wash down food, but maybe are meant to be sampled like at a wine tasting, with cheese and crackers on the side? What's worse is that a liter bottle of these Mickey Mouse Beers often costs 10 Dollars or more. Predictably, lots of fancy restaurants in the Bay Area got that greedy look in their eyes, because they could now all of a sudden put a pint of beer for 15 Dollars on the menu! But count me out, please. I have no intention of participating in disrupting the well-established beer culture, only to fall into the same hyperinflation grooves as the wine culture did 20 years ago. Pass!

Figure [5]: The typical American pint glass measures about 0.47 liters and has to be filled all the way up to the rim.

About 20 years ago, pubs were selling an American pint (about 0.47 liters) of beer for about $3, today it's more like $6. Traditional American pint classes (Figure 5) don't feature a calibration mark, but are supposed to be filled all the way to the rim, so that it's often hard to lift a full glass of beer off the counter without making a mess. But since in many places foamless ales have given way to foamy brews, a glass might contain less fluid than you think it does. What's worse is that restaurants have been jacking up the beer prices lately. After finding out that no one complained when they increased the price for a glass of wine from $6, to $10, and even $20 for top-shelve wines, in recent years they have been performing the same trick in beer sales. The other day I was rubbing my eyes in disbelief when the waiter in my favorite restaurant "Chow" set down a glass of beer for $4.50 in front of me that was only a half pint in size. That didn't fly well with me, my friends! But it turned out that they still serve full pints if you ask.

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