Hacker Cinema
Beer Wars
2009 · Film · documentary · 89 min
Directed by Anat Baron
In America, size matters. The bigger you are, the more power you have, especially in the business world. Anat Baron takes you on a no holds barred exploration of the U.S. beer industry that ultimately reveals the truth behind the label of your favorite beer. Told from an insider’s perspective, the film goes behind the scenes of the daily battles and all out wars that dominate the industry.
5 positivefrom 5 commenters
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5 comments on Hacker News
Summary: benevolent regulation caused the craft beer boom. I call bullshit. Look at this graph [1] and tell me again how great the three-tier system was for market diversity. America went from 700 post-Prohibition breweries to less than 100 in 1978. That was the year homebrewing was legalized, and it's a pretty steady climb back up from there. Brewpubs -- which circumvent the three-tier system and its all-too-easily-locked-up distribution channels -- were legalized in the early 80s and exploding by the late 90s.
I must however agree that this is a happy development. "Beer Wars" is a great little documentary about the phenomenon. [2]
[1] https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-total-number-of-breweries-in-the-u-s-from-1887-to-512405715
[2] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1326194/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
Sure, maybe there were rare situations where this happened but the truth is that before prohibition there were more breweries than we currently have even today[1]. These breweries were in larger towns and they cooperated with farmers in a tightly nit ecosystem:
grain from farmers -> make beer -> spent grain back to farmers to feed cattle
I fail to believe that "competition" was a problem because the infrastructure required to distribute beer far enough to kill the competition did not exist. Yes, perhaps the brewery and bar were owned by the same person and they didn't allow the competition's beer, but there were no laws stopping the other brewery from opening their own bar.
And the fact is that today every brewpub I've ever been to has guest taps and beer from other breweries. I've never been somewhere that refuses to sell anything but their own.
The real problem today is that thanks to the three-tier system being completely controlled by MillerCoors/InBev it is VERY difficult to get your new product into bars and stores. The documentary Beer Wars[2] covers this very well -- better than I could in this posting.
tl;dr three-tier may have served a purpose 75 years ago, but it has been holding back competition and hurting consumers for at least 50 years.
(At one point large towns also had their own local mayonnaise, too!)
[1] https://www.brewersassociation.org/statistics/number-of-breweries/ [2] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1326194/
Brewing (and wine making) seems like the rare field(s) that consumers think they can do better.
I don't think I can make a better computer than Apple just because I use one. I don't think I can block better than the offensive lineman on the 49ers, even if I think he's incompetent. I can't make a car better than GM, even if I might drive one.
Yet why do so many people think opening a brewery is easy?
Beer Wars is a great documentary on the fight craft brewers have against the big beer companies. [1] The war is all in distribution.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1326194/
In addition to the Brewing the American Dream program, Jim Koch has done a lot to support small craft brewers. When there was a hop shortage in 2008, the Boston Beer Co. sold 20,000 lbs. of hops to brewers at cost [1]. It's addressed in the documentary "Beer Wars," which I highly recommend [2].
[1] http://www.samueladams.com/promotions/HopSharing/Default.aspx
[2] http://www.hulu.com/watch/235712/beer-wars
For a good documentary that illustrates the system we have in place, check out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Wars