Just 10 years ago, the proposed merger of SABMiller and Molson Coors into MillerCoors would have worried craft brewers. Back then, “American beer” was thought of as a cheap product with very little beer flavour. But today the United States has by far the most exciting beer culture in the world, and America’s 1,500 craft brewers are undaunted by the prospect of a juggernaut that would have more than 30 per cent of the domestic market. The age of American industrial brewing is over.

Craft brewers used to be called “microbreweries”, but many of us are not so micro anymore. And the people who once thought the craft brewing movement was a fad can now see it for what it really is — a welcome return to normality.

In the 19th century, there were more than 4,000 breweries in the US, brewing almost every sort of beer made in Europe and a few indigenous American varieties besides. By 1870, Brooklyn was one of the great brewing capitals of the world, with 48 breweries. People bought meat from the butcher, bread from the baker, coffee from the roaster and beer from the local brewer.

But by 1970, almost everyone shopped at the supermarket, frozen food and “TV dinners” were godsends, and the Americans had about 40 breweries left in the entire country, all making the same bland beer. Now Americans are moving away from spongy industrial bread, watery coffee, plasticized “cheese” and other wonders of modern food science. The top maker of white supermarket bread went bankrupt a few years ago.

Industrial beer is still the vast majority of the American market, and it’s not going away tomorrow, but there is no future in it. While industrial beers suffer flat or declining sales, craft brewers are experiencing double-digit growth. The big brewers now try to copy craft beers. European brewers, who once laughed at watery American beer, now look to the US for inspiration.

MillerCoors is not a threat to craft brewers but a warning: The Americans should not walk the road of overexpansion or be tempted by the lowest common denominator of the mass market. Miller, Coors and Anheuser-Busch were once small breweries making fine local beer, too.

If the Americans truly want to restore the vibrant beer culture that flourished in the US before Prohibition, craft brewers need to retain the values and goals — creating beers that are flavorful, interesting to drink and made from proper beer ingredients — that put us on the map in the first place. Let them not undo American beer again.

IHT