Beer and Brewer Magazine

Love may tear us apart but Jamie Cook finds small breweries are rediscovering the ancient wisdom that good local beer will bring us back together.

With beer drinkers facing a wider variety of beer styles and brand choices than ever before, they're looking beyond flavour to what brewers are doing to support the community and the planet.

The recent rapid growth in micro-breweries and pub-breweries in Australia signals a step ‘back to the future' - to a time when this country was blessed with hundreds of small local breweries, a time when brewers ran businesses that both supplied and supported their own communities.

Australia's brewing history shows that during the period from colonisation to the late 1800s, the number of breweries kept pace with the continuing growth of the nation. But the impact of the industrial age meant consolidation. In the century that followed, brewery after brewery was swallowed up by stronger competitors, which were driven by the thirst of commercial enterprise to maximise the opportunities provided by emerging technologies.

Embracing the new wizardry, brewers increased the quality, consistency and efficiency of their operations, as well as their ability to distribute product over greater distances. But the fall-out meant mergers, acquisitions and closures - all of which saw the brewing industry slip slowly but surely into the hands of bigger and bigger corporations.

By the early 1990s, two brewers - Fosters and Lion Nathan - controlled 97per cent of all beer sold in the country!

The casualties in this century-long war of attrition were not only the countless small breweries, unique brands and distinctive beer styles but also thousands of jobs and the sense of community beer-drinking brings.

In the mid-80s, a new beer revolution emerged from the brew kettles of a band of pioneers including Phil Sexton, Chuck Hahn and Blair Hayden. They formed the vanguard in the battle for beer diversity.

The market opened its arms to embrace this flavour-based cult and a wave of breweries opened across the country. While corporate breweries snoozed at the wheel, these new ‘craft' brewers carved out a niche based on diversity, making old-world beer styles such as wheat beers, dark lagers, porters, and India pale ales, and marketing them on product attributes as opposed to sports sponsorship and BBQs.

Unfortunately, these pioneers found it difficult to penetrate the drinking market much beyond the well-heeled and image-conscious beer drinkers of the late 80s and so, by the early 90s, those craft brewers who hadn't disappeared altogether had predictably fallen into the hands of the big boys.

Although ownership consolidation had almost maxed out by this point, the new age of the national beer brand was dawning. Fosters and Lion Nathan squared up to fight it out with an arsenal of heavily marketed mega-brands.

At the same time, big brewers were riding the wave of globalisation. New multinationals - particularly from the mergers of SAB and Miller to form SAB Miller, and Interbrew with AmBev to form InBev - also enjoyed growth here; Aussie premium beer drinkers are also avid travellers and we took to imported beer brands in growing numbers.

Then, at the turn of the millennium, a second craft-beer wave gathered momentum. Once again the impetus was the lack of full-flavour beers and diversity in the mainstream. But underpinning the craft breweries this time was a sense of local community, along with a heightened consciousness of their impact on the environment.

Small breweries today are typically run by brewers operating their businesses to feed their souls as much as their wallets. They've embraced the concept of sustainable business, taking small steps for brewing, to ensure their operations contribute to society while minimising their environmental footprints.

Just as the ‘slow food' movement has gained momentum as a counter-cultural wave against the increasingly hectic pace of life, so craft brewers are creating beers that reflect a slower pace and rely on considered preparation with fresh natural ingredients, rather than obeying the pressures of productivity and profit.

Homebrewing is also booming. Kit sales are skyrocketing, for simple supermarket varieties and the more intricate full-mash styles alike. Beer-lovers are opening their eyes to homebrew, fine-tuning the craft and sharing its fruits with neighbours, family and friends.

Even the massive corporate brewers are making big moves to reduce their huge environmental footprints, making large investments in tehnology to curb energy and water consumption. They should be congratulated for their efforts.

With more consumers now seeking out big-flavour beers, our large brewers are now lending more support to crafties like Matilda Bay and James Squire to both satisfy and stimulate the market.

The small craft breweries are banding together to lobby the federal government to gain excise concessions on their beer (see Swig Issue #1). The fact is that anything that assists the growth and success of these smaller brewers will benefit the community at large.

More than anything, these local brewers need your support. Beer has played a large part in the development of societies around the world, and although this was threatened by the industrial age, it's time for beer to once more take its rightful place in the community as the drink that brings people together.

Beer drinkers of Australia need to become beer activists. The pledge? Think globally but drink locally!

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