Brauereisterben: Germany's beer culture is in decline

This is certainly true but I’m not so certain it’s totally unfortunate.  While it’s always sad seeing cultural icons fall, creative destruction betters the marketplace and caters to the consumer.

Germans produce beers largely for refreshment.  They’re usually great balance of crisp and delicious.  This is what American light lagers initially were—they’ve since atrophied into macrobreweries like Miller and Budweiser.  The Germans produced exceptional beers in comparison, a great mixture of taste and drinkability.

Unfortunately, the Americans blow them away on taste and creativity.  Much of this is due to German purity laws (many German apologists will claim this) but I think it’s far more due to the American ingenuity.  The small, niche German markets are still successful and in fact grow in popularity in America (notably rauchbiers, mentioned in the article).

During the Cold War, jazz was heralded as an example of the amazing creativity for which capitalism allows.  We would ship Louis Armstrong across the world to show the world the spoils of capitalism, the creativity it inspires and fosters.  Now we have Sam Calagione and Greg Koch.  American influence on European beers continues to grow.  Brewers like Sam Adams and Dogfish Head have notably collaborated with established European brewers while Stone is considering opening a brewery on the continent.  However, capitalism is largely at fault for the over-consolidation of European breweries, which likely hindered the growth of German beers and has put their industry into a stagnation which resembles post-prohibition, pre-microbrewery America.

German beers are for drinking.  Beer snobs use the term “session” for these sort of beers.  American beers are for tasting.  The Europeans cannot compete with the American creativity, ingenuity and individuality as it is incarnated in the beer industry.  They are the whites to our bold reds.

The wine industry had the Judgement of Paris, ushering in an era of American excellence.  The beer industry never had a Judgement of Munich, however the American microbreweries’ success is even greater than that of our vinyards.  However, I feel certain we have not seen the end of German excellence—this trend will reverse, there will again be small, specialized breweries which will rise from the ashes.

(via jasencomstock:harharhar)

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