I am only a consumer, but it feels as if we're living in a golden age of beer. Every single state has wonderful small breweries. There's a variety of types of beer to choose from. I happen to be an IPA person, and I'm pretty happy with all the wonderful IPAs out there. My best friend prefers sour beers, and alas not as many of them are being made. Soon that will change, we hope.

And since that brew will only be available in very few places, it definitely won't impact the beer industry as a whole.

...for the large beer producers.

They were losing market share...so they bought up some micro breweries quietly and marketed them. They thought they nipped this in the bud. Only, it didn't stop there, more micro brews popped up and even though not marketed to your chain stores, people are going to the brewery itself to buy beer. Some add restaurants, have food truck nights at the brewery, etc. something the big companies really can't compete with.

Ten bucks says, someone argued in a planning meeting, once they bought the micro breweries eating into their market share, they would slowly "introduce cost saving measures". Now they can't. To compete they still have to prop up the business with its "expensive ways".

So yeah, the beer industry is struggling...if you're a mass manufacturer. If the consumer doesn't want your product, they can now brew their own.

as the big beer companies were buying the smaller ones, and it looked as if in a very short time there'd be maybe four crappy beer producers, all making crappy beer. It was then that individuals who really cared about beer started the entire micro-brew thing.

I have gotten so I try very hard to drink only beer brewed by a local brewery, not one that was bought out by a conglomerate but kept the original name. I probably get it wrong sometimes, but most of the time I think I get it right.

Here's a story I heard recently, and I hope it's true. The Martin City Brewery in Kansas City, Missouri (actually outside KC itself, really in Kansas, although it's on the Missouri side of the state line) saw that Superbowl ad a few years ago in which one of the big crappy breweries stated they brewed their beer "The hard way". Someone in Martin City thought, "Hmmm, I wonder if they trademarked that phrase?" Turned out they hadn't and Martine City Brewery makes an EXCELLENT IPA called, wait for it, Hard Way IPA.

So if the big four breweries lose market share, I won't shed a tear. Because I like to drink real beer.