The history of craft beer began in the 1960s. You may know part of the story: the growing popularity of homebrew in the 1970s and the rise of microbreweries in the 1990s. As colonial cities grew during the 18th century, so did breweries. Breweries in the city brewed the same type of beers found in England during that time, and often supplemented malt with other sugars, such as molasses.
Farms made with barley malt, wheat, corn, pumpkins, peas and spices. See pumpkin beer and its brewing in colonial America. The art of brewing began in ancient times with the advent of growing wheat and barley grains. The history of modern craft beer in the United States began in the 1960s, when Fritz Maytag decided to buy Anchor Brewing Company in San Francisco, starting the craft beer revolution.
Commercial breweries revived only in the 18th century, with well-established brewers' guilds across Central Europe tasked with protecting the interests of an increasingly powerful merchant clan. Breweries that would remain, and flourish, would be a new wave focused on making exclusively “American beer.” The company also purchased breweries in other parts of the country, making it easier to ship its beer to destinations further west. It is also significant that the craft beer movement took off during the Great Recession, as unemployment created a generation of entrepreneurs “out of necessity” who, lacking formal offers, opened small breweries. Technically, they create an exception to the prized three-tier system in a way that benefits smaller breweries.
The term and trend spread to the United States in the 1980s and were eventually used as a designation for breweries producing less than 15,000 U. For example, the breweries mentioned above used the ashes of the old brewing industry for their innovations. This company inspired many other young brewers, such as Jim Koch, Ken Grossman and Sam Calagione, to go out on their own, bringing the then-independent brewers Samuel Adams, Sierra Nevada and Dogfish Head to the world. The craft beer boom in the United States continues to grow, with nearly 7,500 craft and macro breweries in the United States alone.
Upper Franconia, a district in the Franconian region of northern Bavaria, has the highest density of breweries in the world. About a third of small breweries have a tradition that dates back 500 years, most of them in Franconia. Big breweries ignored burgeoning niches, Watson said, particularly India Pale Ales Hops, or IPA, which make up a large part of the craft beer market. In the next decade, countless breweries would close, very few new ones would open, and beer sales would begin to decline compared to sales of wines and spirits.
Surprisingly, home-brewing beer above 0.5% had been illegal since Prohibition, and in 1978, there were only 89 breweries in the United States.
