America's beer landscape began to change by the late-1970s. The traditions and styles brought over by immigrants from all over the world were disappearing. Only light lager appeared on shelves and in bars and imports were not a significant player in the marketplace. Highly effective marketing campaigns had changed America's drinking preference to light-adjunct lager. Low calorie light lagers soon began driving and shaping the growth and nature of the American beer industry, even to present day.
By the end of the decade the brewing industry had consolidated to only 44 brewing companies. Industry experts predicted that soon there would only be 5 brewing companies in the United States. At the same time as the American brewing landscape was shrinking in taste and size a grassroots homebrewing culture emerged. The homebrewing hobby began to thrive because the only way a person in the United States could experience the brewing traditions and styles of other countries was to make the beer themselves.
In 1976 what some call the true renaissance of American craft brewing emerged with the founding of The New Albion Brewery in Sonoma, California by a homebrew enthusiast. While this brewery went out of business after about 6 years, there were hundreds of homebrewers that were inspired and followed in their footsteps and started breweries in the early-1980s.
The 1980s marked the decade of the microbrewing pioneers. In a time when industry experts flat out refused to recognize their existence as anything serious, the pioneering companies emerged with their passion and a vision, serving their local communities a taste of full flavored brews and old world European traditions; all with what was to become a uniquely American character. Through extraordinarily difficult market conditions, the microbreweries and brewpubs of the 1980s struggled to establish the foundation for what was to become the proliferation of craft beer in America.
Courtesy of Brewers Association
BREWERY | LOCATION |
---|---|
Abita Brewing Company | Abita Springs, Louisiana USA |
Bell's Brewery | Kalamazoo, Michigan USA |
Brooklyn Brewery | Brooklyn, New York USA |
Dogfish Head | Milton, Delaware USA |
Flying Dog Brewery | Frederick, Maryland USA |
Goose Island Beer Company | Chicago, Illinois USA |
Great Lakes Brewing Company | Cleveland, Ohio USA |
Jacob Leinenkugel's Brewing Company | Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin USA |
Mount Carmel Brewing Company | Cincinnati, Ohio USA |
New Belgium Brewing | Fort Collins, Colorado USA |
Rogue Ales | Newport, Oregon USA |
75th Street Brewery | Kansas City, Missouri USA |
Sierra Nevada Brewing Company | Chico, California USA |
Victory Brewing Company | Downington, Pennsylvania USA |
Yuengling | Pottsville, Pennsylvania USA |