From flickr user jon starbuck

Travel writer Doug Lansky highlights a survey of 3,400 beer drinkers from around the world, asking them which country makes the world’s worst beer.  The winner?  The United States, by a lot.

According to Lansky, 36.2% of beer drinkers from 99 countries ranked the U.S. as the worst beer producing country, which dwarfed the 6.9% who said China.  The American rating was actually 7% worse than last year.

The full list is below, but don’t panic.  Even considering Germany or Belgium, the reality is that American beer drinkers enjoy what is probably the best beer selection anywhere in the world, and those beers are produced by other Americans.    What this survey seems to show is that American craft brewers aren’t distributing — and more than that, it means is that they’re not marketing — overseas.

For now, that’s just fine.  The American craft beer market still has plenty of room to grow (even though the overall beer market has been drug down by the dead weight of the major macrobreweries), and when that market has been satisfied, I think you’ll see plenty of craft brewers distributing much more widely.  Most craft breweries don’t even distribute nationally yet — a frustration that keeps someone like me from enjoying a New Belgium’s Fat Tire on a regular basis.

The real problem with this is that the rest of the world sees American macrobreweries the same way American beer lovers do — not positively.  With their marketing budgets, distribution networks, and business deals, they have absolutely decimated the reputation of American beer across the world.  In 10 or 20 years, should Sam Adams or Sierra Nevada want to seriously market and distribute in China, India, or across Europe, what kind of negative preconceptions will they be up against?  How badly will it hurt their ability to sell and expand?

Clearly, American craft breweries have shown an admirable tenacity while battling the macros on their own turf.  And by all accounts, they’re winning.  Can they do that across the globe when the time comes, if it comes?

As promised, the list of nine is below.  It’s actually not a terrible list, with the exception of the US and UK.

The Worst Beer Producing Countries in the World (from Dough Lansky)

1. United States, 36.2%
2. China, 6.9%
3. Italy, 6.9%
4. France, 3.5%
5. Mexico, 3.5%
6. United Kingdom, 2.8%
7. Australia, 2.4%
8. India, 2.4%

From flickr user Bernt Rostad

The Atlantic has a write up about the one of the more unique brewery innovations — brewers without permanent homes.  Referred to as gypsy brewing, “brewery” teams float around and take advantage of excess capacity and down time at micro and craft breweries.  For a homebrewer looking to take a step up, this could be exactly what you need.

But the real advantage for Pretty Things is the creative flexibility that comes with having few sunk costs. Conventional breweries need to make a regular income to cover loans, pay investors, and meet insurance premiums—which, at least until the upfront costs are covered, means brewing beers that will sell widely. That’s partly why new breweries start with crowd-pleasers like IPAs and brown ales, and only later venture into palate-challengers like sour ales and imperial stouts.

“We’re able to be crazy creative,” Martha said. “We brew for our own entertainment.” Indeed, few breweries are as proudly idiosyncratic as Pretty Things. They draw their own labels and promote their new beers with home videos posted to YouTube. Like other gypsy brewers, they eschew standard styles in favor of deeply personal tastes; Babayaga, which Dann described as a “woodland stout” and is brewed with malts roasted with rosemary, “was meant to taste like an old lady made it in a shack in Eastern Europe.”

Creativity wins on this, which is always a good thing.  And the idea that many breweries would let a competitor just come in and set up shop also speaks to just how strong the craft beer community is.

From flickr user t3hWIT

Good news for all of you who want a casual beer to go with your heftier craft brews: Yuengling, a brewery that has frustrated many beer lovers with their slow and meticulous expansion along the east coast, is taking a very big step.  The brewery has announced that they’ve purchased an old Coors plant in Memphis, TN, which means you have an alternative if you’re looking for an American light lager.

From the Wall Street Journal…

Yuengling, the oldest brewer in the U.S., has signed a letter of intent to buy the Memphis facility from Hardy Bottling Co., which purchased it from Molson Coors Brewing Co. in 2006.

Acquiring the facility would give the Pottsville, Pa., company—the seventh-largest U.S. beer supplier by sales volume—a fourth manufacturing facility and help it expand distribution beyond its current 13 states in the eastern U.S.

“Memphis is an ideal location,” said David Casinelli, chief operating officer of Yuengling, in a phone interview. “At some point we’re going to run out of room” at its existing plants in Pennsylvania and Florida.

Budweiser

USA Today reports on the latest ad strategy for faltering Budweiser: giving their beer away and hoping people buy it later.

To appeal to the under-30 set that has ignored the brand — but is a prime consumer group for beer — Budweiser will unleash its biggest-ever national free-sample effort in trendy bars and eateries. The campaign begins Monday, with the slogan “Grab some Buds.”

The hype culminates on Sept. 29, when the brand hosts the “Budweiser National Happy Hour,” a bid by Bud to nudge folks to at least try a free brewski. The free samples for those 21 and up range from 6 ounces to 12 ounces, depending on state and local rules.

They know how things have changed in the last 10 years, and craft beer is a major problem for them.

The promotion comes as upscale consumers are turning to craft beers, the price-conscious are trading down, and others switched to light beers. “It’s a triple whammy,” says Michael Bellas, CEO at Beverage Marketing.

Executives at Anheuser-Busch, a wholly owned subsidiary of Belgium-based Anheuser–Busch InBev, insist they can reignite interest from younger drinkers with an image upgrade and a reintroduction via sampling.

I’m not sure which “trendy bars” they’re referring to, but trendy has meant craft beer or high-end cocktails.  I’m not sure how Budweiser fits with any of that.

We’ve written before about Jimmy Carter’s loosening of homebrewing regulation in 1979 and how it helped people like us pick up the hobby.  But blogger E.D. Kain dove in and looked at the numbers.  What did he find?  That Jimmy Carter may be responsible for the craft beer movement of today.

He writes:

If you’re a fan of craft beer and microbreweries as opposed to say Bud Light or Coors, you should say a little thank you to Jimmy Carter. Carter could very well be the hero of International Beer Day.

To make a long story short, prohibition led to the dismantling of many small breweries around the nation. When prohibition was lifted, government tightly regulated the market, and small scale producers were essentially shut out of the beer market altogether. Regulations imposed at the time greatly benefited the large beer makers. In 1979, Carter deregulated the beer industry, opening the market back up to craft brewers. As the chart below illustrates, this had a really amazing effect on the beer industry:

Pretty interesting stuff, based off the work of Rob Carlson.

(From Flickr user kevindean)

Feeling the recession?  Craft breweries aren’t.

Earlier this week, the Brewers Association released numbers from the first half of 2010 showing craft beer sales were up 12%.

Craft breweries continue to grow despite many challenges, and currently provide an estimated 100,000 jobs and contribute significantly to the U.S. economy.  Barrels sold by craft brewers for the first half of the year are an estimated 4.6 million, compared to 4.2 million barrels sold in the first half of 2009.

“While craft brewer sales volume climbed 9 percent in the first half of 2010, overall U.S. beer industry volume sales are down 2.7 percent so far,” noted Paul Gatza, director of the Brewers Association. “There is a movement by beer lovers to the innovative and flavorful beers created by America’s small and independent craft brewers. More people are starting to think of craft-brewed beer first when they buy in restaurants, bars and stores.”

I guess if you’re going to feel some form of economic stress, you can spend at least a little more to get through it with good beer.

I doubt there was decent beer in that beer bong.

They will be if John Kerry has his way…

US Senator John Kerry says he wants to give the country’s 1,500 small beer makers a tax break.

Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, introduced a bill to the Senate on Wednesday that would reduce the excise tax for small breweries from $7 to $3.50 per barrel for the first 60,000 barrels of beer produced each year. For every additional barrel up to 2 million, the bill would lower the excise tax from $18 to $16.

Lower taxes are great, and it will absolutely help craft brewers invest in brewery expansion. At the very least, it should help smaller, struggling breweries keep their doors open while they get on their feet.

Hopefully a more streamlined bureaucracy is next on the list — if we want to expand the number of craft breweries operating in the country, it’s necessary on both the state and federal level.

From Flickr user Matt Niemi

The Brewers Association released the 2009 craft beer sales figures today, and if you’re reading this site, you shouldn’t be surprised.

The Brewers Association, the trade association that tabulates production statistics for US breweries, today released 2009 data on the U.S. craft brewing industry. In a year when other brewers saw a slowdown in sales, small and independent craft brewers saw sales dollars increase 10.3 percent and volume increase 7.2 percent over 2008, representing a growth of 613,992 barrels equal to roughly 8.5 million cases.

Great news.  The more it sells, the easier it’ll be to find and enjoy.