A look back at the “big Bang” in craft beer
To this day, I still find it incomprehensible that in a country of 330 million people, there were fewer than 100 breweries supplying the demand for beer. That was in the early 1980’s, which was considered the nadir for the American brewing industry. The fact that those 90 or so breweries were owned by only forty companies pretty much explains the sad situation. The vast majority of the beer being produced back then was very homogenized: pale, light-bodied and sweet -basically carbonated sugar water.
The reality is that about 90% of all American beer was essentially the same product, it was just packaged under different brand names like Pabst, Hamm’s, Schlitz, Falstaff, Miller, Coors, Budweiser, Stroh’s, and a whole slew of lesser-known regional brands, such as Olympia, Lone Star, Rainier, Genesee, Schmidt, Ballantine, Blatz and G. Heileman.
The scenario above is a good part of the reason why the craft beer industry got its start, but there are other factors that came into play. The beer that was slaking the thirsts of the few Americans who yearned for better beer was typically imported from other countries. Europe was well-represented with brands from Britain, Germany, Denmark, and The Netherlands, but also available were more obscure brands from Australia, Japan, and other Asian countries. And let’s not forget our next-door neighbors, Canada, and Mexico. The minority of Americans who had traveled or lived outside the United States came home with a taste for more flavorful beer.
Another major factor that came into play –and is widely recognized as the primary catalyst for the rise of the small brewery—was when President Jimmy Carter signed bill H.R. 1337 (sponsored by California Senator Alan Cranston) into law, making it legal to brew beer in one’s own home. Practically overnight, would-be brewers began creating their own beery concoctions in their basements and garages -many of them with dreams of commercial success. Some of them achieved it.
In the early days of microbrewing (that’s what it was called back then), virtually all brewers shared a common background of brewing beer at home. Many of them also credited one of the very few “how-to” books available on the topic written by Charlie Papazian, Fred Eckhardt or Byron Burch.
But even before H.R. 1337 and homebrewing how-tos, a few intrepid individuals were determined to forge a path on their own. Jack McAuliffe, along with co-owners Jane Zimmerman and Suzy Stern, opened the first confirmed small brewery in the U.S. since before Prohibition (pre-1920), in Sonoma County, California. New Albion Brewing, which was named for San Francisco’s Albion Brewery, came on the scene as early as 1976.
In 1979, Fireman Tom De Bakker and his wife, Jan, opened the second microbrewery in the U.S.; De Bakker Brewing debuted in Novato, California, just down the road from New Albion. Elsewhere, the Cartwright Brewing Company, opened in 1980 by Chuck and Shirley Coury, planted the seed that helped to establish Portland, Oregon, as a major U.S. craft beer hub. Later that same year, Ken Grossman and Paul Camusi put Chico, California —and American Pale Ale— on the map when they opened Sierra Nevada Brewing Company.
Though not considered a microbrewery -and opened long before the term came into vogue, the timeworn Anchor Brewery in San Francisco, is revered for its contributions to the emerging craft beer scene. New owner Fritz Maytag was credited with preserving a uniquely American beer style, Steam Beer, as well as helping to revive the porter and barleywine styles in the U.S. In addition to this, Anchor’s Liberty Ale is widely considered the first Double IPA brewed in America.
Considering all of this information covers a short period of time within the past 40+ years of craft brewing in the United States, those who are tasked with choosing the inaugural class of inductees into the Hall of Fame have some tough choices ahead of them.