Small-scale wars have been fought and somehow won over whether or not Miller or Bud was the supreme beer. But such wars, waged near the backyard grill on Memorial Day or with unwilling waitresses acting as judge pro-temp, seemed to outsiders an exercise in futility, the truth being (sorry Miller and Bud guys) the beers are nearly identical.
Now safely in the era of homebrew, craft beers and microbrewery, America is, we say, in a Post-Suds Age where beer can be a refined experience, exploding with aroma, flavor, and good grassroots independence.
But with the economy in the can, reports say people are modifying their drinking habits––by drinking at home (understandable with bar libations running an average of six bucks a pop) and by "trading down" their beer selections, choosing cheaper domestics over more costly imports and specialty beers.
Instead of reverting back to days when Spuds Mackenzie, sunglass-wearing spokesdog for Bud Lite was more popular than the president, why not use our bitter economy as an excuse to drink a little less but something that's worth the effort, because, apparently, people are going to buy beer no matter how rough things get.
The beer industry, considered as nearly recession-resistant as any, is doing much much better overall than nearly every other industry in America.
On February 10, National Public Radio's All Things Considered ran a story entitled "Brewery Business Hopping Despite Tanking Economy." In short, the feature said the beer industry is holding strong and is "considered a good hedge during hard times."
Reporter John Burnette interviewed health and safety manager Juan Manuel Prado from Grupo Modelo, producer of Corona, the number one American import. Prado reflected on the American beer culture saying, "The American beer market is the biggest in the world. Beer is part of your culture. When you're sad, you have a beer; when you're content, you have a beer."
Agreed.
A recent Associated Press story entitled, "Beer Sales Go Flat As The Economy Slows," reported the beer industry took an unexpected downturn in the last three months of 2008.
But that "unexpected downturn" still resulted in numbers the auto or real-estate industries would kill for.
"The U.S. beer market," the AP story reported, "typically grows about one percent a year, over a ten-year average. In the past few years, it had been growing ahead of that. In 2008, sales rose about half a percentage point."
AP also reported volume sales of MillerCoors joint venture with Canada’s Molson dropped 2.3 percent in the States. To compare, in January, new-vehicle sales were down 37 percent.
Point being, where there's a will to drink, there's a way, and Americans' attitude toward beer seems to be, in the quotable words of Yoda, "There is no try, only do."
So with the understanding that Americans are going to drink, we - members of the "largest beer market in the world" - might take the opportunity to pare back the quantity we consume and (if not Miller or Bud devotees) keep spending those bucks on quality beer or even some homebrew.
If you usually purchase and consume a six-pack of Paulaner Hefe-Weizen a week and have suddenly discovered you can't afford the 40 bucks that’s costing you each month, do not, as Dylan Thomas, great Welsh poet and self-proclaimed alcoholic, said in his 1952 poem (which incidentally had nothing to do with alcohol), do not go gentle into that good night!
Keep purchasing your Paulaner, just cut the amount you drink. Or, if $20 a month is still too expensive, many imported beers come in larger, single serving sizes. Maybe go with one of those instead of a six-pack or brew some beer of your own and keep the grassroots movement alive that brought us such a wide variety of domestics – from the pale ale to the wheat to the India brown – onto our grocery shelves and into our refrigerators.
The point is to make those beer bucks count in these tough times. Your taste buds, your waistline and your dignity will thank you for it. |
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