I had an inter­est­ing con­ver­sa­tion with a mem­ber of my state gov­ern­ment. We were talk­ing about the incred­i­ble growth in the last two years in our local craft beer scene and where its going next. Our dis­cus­sion high­lighted how Idaho’s craft beer indus­try, and the craft beer indus­try through­out Amer­ica can ben­e­fit state and local economies by adding jobs and increas­ing rev­enue more rapidly than many other industries.

Beer vs Wine, A Side By Side:

The wine indus­try is obvi­ously a much more mature indus­try that is sup­ported by a very strong trade asso­ci­a­tion, well orga­nized and monied oper­a­tors. Fur­ther­more Amer­i­can winer­ies ben­e­fit greatly from the long held belief that wine is a supe­rior prod­uct to beer. It is believed to be the most appro­pri­ate bev­er­age to have with a fine meal, to cel­e­brate a spe­cial occa­sion or to be seen with if you’re a smart sophis­ti­cated adult, not a drunken frat boy.

Beer, specif­i­cally craft beer, is a very young indus­try with less than 1,500 oper­a­tors across the coun­try and con­cen­trated in just a hand­ful of states. The oper­a­tors of brew­pubs and craft brew­eries are largely pas­sion­ate men and women that aren’t bound by tra­di­tion as vint­ners so often are. This free­dom to exper­i­ment has led to an ever increas­ing range of unique and inter­est­ing beers. Even with wines pre­ferred place at the table, more and more top chefs, like Thomas Keller, have embraced craft beer for its com­plex­ity and abil­ity to pair with dif­fi­cult dishes such as asian cui­sine, sal­ads and even desserts.

The Ins and Out of Two Industries:

Wine is a prod­uct of the land from where it’s grown. Very few regions around the globe are con­sid­ered ideal for pro­duc­ing qual­ity wines. Con­di­tions must be ideal — just the right amount of warm days to cool nights, the right ele­va­tion, slope face, etc. In the past 15 years numer­ous states that were once thought to be ill suited for grapes have planted vine­yards and begun pro­duc­ing wine. The con­sumers out­side of these imme­di­ate locales are still highly skep­ti­cal of the qual­ity and opt for Cal­i­for­nia, Wash­ing­ton, Ore­gon or imported wine bot­tles instead.

States like Iowa, Vir­ginia, Geor­gia, Ari­zona, Idaho and scores of oth­ers are attempt­ing to develop a rep­u­ta­tion as a pro­ducer of qual­ity wines. The time and expense required to pen­e­trate a largely sat­u­rated mar­ket is immense. State gov­ern­ments have thrown mil­lions of dol­lars at their “wine regions” in the form of grants, sub­si­dies, tax breaks and tourism pro­grams. These mea­sures have deliv­ered some suc­cess but in many of the states there is still a very long way to go before they can claim they have a real wine region.

Beer on the other hand is a prod­uct of crafts­men who can pro­duce it in almost any place on Earth regard­less of exter­nal con­di­tions. So long as the brewer has access to grain, clean water and hops it is pos­si­ble to pro­duce a wide range of world class beer. A hand­ful of states have rec­og­nized the value both cul­tur­ally and eco­nom­i­cally to hav­ing a large, strong and thriv­ing craft beer indus­try. They have invested in it through sim­i­lar pro­grams as wine with tourism pro­grams, some tax cred­its for build­ing and expan­sion, and low­ered tax rates on pro­duc­tion up to so many bar­rels. The amount of time needed for a region or state to cre­ate a rep­u­ta­tion as a craft beer Mecca is con­sid­er­ably less than for wine. The ben­e­fits to the state and or munic­i­pal­ity are rec­og­nized in far less time mean­ing tremen­dous sav­ings to the program.

Sum­ming Up:

So here’s the gist of all this. States and munic­i­pal­i­ties that want to invest in their com­mu­ni­ties by offer­ing tax incen­tives, grants and other pro­grams aimed at cre­at­ing jobs, grow­ing rev­enues and sup­port­ing in state indus­try could hardly do bet­ter than invest­ing in craft beer. States like Michi­gan and Col­orado have seen incred­i­ble growth with an explo­sion of new brew­eries and brew­pubs pump­ing high qual­ity craft beer out to thirsty beer lovers around the coun­try. It has helped by putting much needed jobs and tax rev­enue back into their local and regional economies. These returns have come much more quickly than they would have had the states invested in wine production.

States and cities that make the com­mit­ment to cre­ate pro­grams that sup­port the growth of the craft beer indus­try will see rapid devel­op­ment of “home grown” brew­eries and brew­pubs. In addi­tion to the local star­tups they may also attract brew­ers from other regions for new facil­i­ties bring­ing addi­tional jobs and rev­enue. You need only look at New Bel­gium and Sierra Nevada and their plans to open brew­eries on the East Coast for exam­ples of this sort of growth.

One of the most expen­sive invest­ments a brew­ery may make is in bot­tling and or can­ning lines but those that can afford to make this step reach a much big­ger mar­ket than just local or regional bars and pubs. Pro­grams that cre­ate fund­ing to buy and oper­ate bot­tling or can­ning lines would allow a brew­ery to expand capac­ity and cre­ate more jobs. This pro­gram would also cre­ate higher rev­enue as the increased pro­duc­tion would gen­er­ate tax rev­enue back to the state. In states where co-operatives may not be per­mit­ted, alter­ing the laws to per­mit facil­i­ties where mul­ti­ple brew­ers can or bot­tle would be a tremen­dous ben­e­fit.
Enter­prise zones focused on the craft beer indus­try should also be con­sid­ered as a means to bol­ster the local econ­omy. So many indus­trial areas in this coun­try are dilap­i­dated and in need of rein­vest­ment in order to make them a valu­able part of our com­mu­ni­ties. Craft beer can be the cat­a­lyst of re-birth. Fund­ing for this sort of pro­gram would come from both gov­ern­ment and pri­vate invest­ment and would tar­get parts of a city that are in need of revi­tal­iza­tion. This sort of pro­gram would cre­ate Brew­ery Dis­tricts where numer­ous brew­eries, brew­pubs, restau­rants, shops and other small busi­nesses would spring up as locals and tourist alike flock to the area to enjoy hand crafted local beers.

The ben­e­fits of sup­port­ing a young and rapidly grow­ing craft beer indus­try are appar­ent but the con­ser­v­a­tive nature of gov­ern­ment makes it dif­fi­cult for pro­grams such as these to be imple­mented. There are lit­er­ally hun­dreds of brew­eries being planned in cities all across the coun­try as we speak and the sin­gle biggest obsta­cle to their open­ing is avail­able cap­i­tal. If the peo­ple in the form of tax dol­lars invest in craft beer then craft beer will reward them with jobs, rev­enue and most impor­tantly great beer. Here’s to the craft beer rev­o­lu­tion and its starts today!

Be Socia­ble, Share!

• 

Patrick

Patrick Schroeder has two rules: 1) Drink beer good peo­ple brew. Craft brew­ers brew for the love of their craft so give every beer a try. B) Never drink the sed­i­ment cake. Other than that, Patrick spends his time home brew­ing, spend­ing time with his fam­ily and tip­ping back a few pints with fel­low beer lovers. If you wish to con­tact him, send an email to patrick@thebrewbros.com. You can also find him on Twit­ter under the name beerguru14. Prost!

More Posts

Related posts: