Flying Dog's Jim Lutz (R.) has been at the forefront of the Maryland brewing recolution in the 1990's when he founded Wild Goose, still brewed at the Flying Dog facility. Photo by Kelly L. Fowler

We just finished a year, and in finishing that year, we finished off a decade. Here in Maryland where I live, it’s been a pretty good year for beer. Flying Dog was recognized as mid-sized brewery of the year at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver, DOGBrewing and Brewer’s Alley both won medals at GABF, brewer Matt Hagerman (Growler’s of Gaithersburg) became vice-president of the Mid Atlantic District for the Master Brewers Association of the Americas, The Ruddy Duck finally opened their doors down in Solomons Island…and took six medals in the Maryland Governor’s Cup competition – including a gold for their Oktoberfest Beer.

I think that Maryland has been a microcosm of what is happening in the craft beer industry with more openings than closings, and more and more well crafted beer coming available to the beer aficionado in all parts of the state.

Sure, in the last decade the state has seen Frederick Brewing falter, then fall. But the facility was state of the art, and just waiting for the right management – enter Flying Dog. In Vermont, a number of years ago the same thing happened. The Catamount Brewery – a facility that produced a fine product, was mismanaged and eventually run into the ground. Today that facility is going strong producing Harpoon beers. In recent years, there has been more and more of this as some of the larger craft brewers, and even some of the macros have acquired smaller breweries – such as Anheuser-Busch acquiring Old Dominion (minority owner), and Red Hook, or this past fall’s news regarding Long Trail acquiring Otter Creek. There has been a trend towards consolidation.

While I have no particular issue with consolidation (with certain stipulations – I’ll get to those later), I can see where it might be viewed as a dirty word among much of the craft brew consuming public.

Anyone with a strong sense of history regarding the industry will recall that back in the 1970’s, just as craft beer was in its infancy, will recall that the brewing industry was tending towards fewer and fewer breweries. Projections by the mid-1970’s were calling for the industry to shrink to less than five major companies producing beer in the United States.

While acquisitions have occurred this past decade, its been different than what was going on 40 years ago. Back in the late 1970’s a group of homebrewers started a business that failed, but it knocked a hole in the dyke, and no thumb has been able to stem the flow of tasty, tasty beer that has poured through that hole.

The current consolidation is not what happened back then – yes, Frederick Brewing is gone and in its place is Flying Dog, but FD retained the Wild Goose label – in itself a respectable product. But AB, recognizing that there is a strong and growing market for craft beer, bought into several smaller breweries but largely stayed away from messing with the recipes. Hell, even AB was purchased, but Belgian based buyer, InBev, recognizing a cash cow, very quickly announced that they would not change Budweiser.

For all the consolidation that appears to be happening in the industry, the industry continues to grow – offering more and more choices to the craft beer drinker. As a matter of fact, according to statistics at the Brewer’s Association’s Web site, in the last 30 years the industry has grown by more than 1500 brewers – and has grown every year in the last decade in spite of the current economic state. It seems that openings have outweighed closings. While the numbers are still out on 2009, in the last two years for which the association has the statistics, ‘07 and ‘08, 128 brewpubs, 113 microbreweries, and one regional craft brewery opened their doors. That’s 242 new brewing facilities opening over a two year stretch in the US against 98 brewpubs, 30 microbreweries, and two regionals closing – 130 total facilities.

With more and more labels available every year and more festivals to attend, availability of craft beer has never been higher. Photo by Kelly L. Fowler

The amazing thing about the industry – during the first year of the economic downturn and at the tail end of the hops shortage, closures of brewpubs went down by 13 percent, and microbreweries by 50 percent – not even counting for the growth in the industry.

Overall, while there have been the comings and goings typical of any industry, the first decade of the new millennium has been good to the lover of craft beers. What does this mean for the next ten years? Absolutely nothing.

Sorry for the pragmatic view. The outlook is indeed good, however, as we saw in the recent economic downturn, past success is not necessarily an indicator of future performance. A perfect storm of ingredients shortages and the clusterfuck of legislation and taxes could indeed cause serious problems for the industry – particularly for the small brewery or brewpub owner, and these factors always seem to be lurking – particularly the legislative issues.

For a strong decade of craft beer ahead of us, it will take not only us showing our local beer stores that we want more from the craft brewing industry with our wallets, but it will also take lobbying efforts on the part of the industry – just ask those in West Virginia where it has only been in the past year that legislation has opened up that state’s market for craft brewers – 30 years after the craft beer revolution began.