Breweries of Wisconsin

Preface to the Second Edition

Preface to the Second Edition Since the late 1980s, when I finished researching the first edition of this history, the brewing industry nationally and in Wisconsin has changed dramatically. In the 1960s, 1970s, and into the 1980s, a handful of big, national breweries grew increasingly larger and most of the smaller, regional brewers closed. With increasing labor and material costs, marketing challenges from the giants, and a host of other reasons the small and mid-size brewers simply could not afford to remain open. During this time not only did the brewery industry change but so did hotels and motels, fast food restaurants, hardware stores, airlines, small town department stores-just about everything in society. The little businesses closed and big chains emerged. A homogenous taste resulted. A McDonald's hamburger purchased in Seattle tasted exactly like one purchased in Madison, Wisconsin. A room at a Holiday Inn in Green Bay was essentially the same as a Holiday Inn room in Bangor, Maine. Budweiser or Miller beer served in Chicago tasted the same as Budweiser or Miller beer in New Orleans. In 1955, the year I graduated from college, forty-five breweries operated in Wisconsin (college students then and now kept track of such things). By 1992 only six ofthose forty-five remained open-G. Heileman, Leinenkugel, Miller, Pabst, Stevens Point, and Huber. Some big ones had closed-Schlitz (1981) and Blatz (1959). Many mid-size breweries had slammed shut their doorsGettlemen (1970), Oshkosh (1971), and Fauerbach (1966). And the little ones disappeared in droves-Berlin (1964), Marshfield (1966), Potosi (1972), Rhinelander (1967), and many others. In 1960 Anheuser-Busch of St. Louis led the national brewers, producing 6.48 million thirty-one-gallon barrels of beer. Schlitz of Milwaukee was in second place brewing 5.69 million barrels. xiv Prefaee to the Seeond Edition xv Falstaff was third, Carling was fourth, and Milwaukee's Pabst Brewing Company was in fifth place with 4.7 million barrels of beer produced. By 1970, Anheuser-Busch was producing 22 million barrels per year. Schlitz, in second place, brewed 15 million barrels. Pabst, in third, made 10.5 million barrels. And Miller Brewing had crept up to seventh place with 5.1 million barrels. Throughout the United States, the big breweries kept growing larger and smaller ones continued closing. Bill Coors (Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado) said in 1979 that the way things were going the country would have but five breweries remaining by the year 2000. But a strange thing happened. Starting in the 1980s new breweries began opening on both coasts. Soon they were found all over the country. Rather than the five large breweries predicted by Bill Coors (no doubt with tongue in cheek), by 2002 there were approximately fourteen hundred U.S. brewers, the majority of them brewpubs with an average production of twelve hundred barrels per year. What happened? The beer drinkers ofAmerica rebelled. With an appropriate emphasis on moderation led by groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) as well as lowered blood alcohol percentages for drunk driving convictions and an aging population and an increased concern about health, more American beer drinkers began considering quality rather than quantity . Many wanted a richer, more fulfilling taste than that offered by the big brewers such as Anheuser-Busch and Miller. Emerging was a new category of brews called craft beers, which were specially brewed in small batches with little or no dependence on the computers and other high technology commonly used by the large breweries. Two new categories of breweries emerged during those years: microbreweries and brewpubs. Although there is some variation, microbreweries were initially defined as those producing less than fifteen thousand barrels a year (compare with Anheuser-Busch, which brews more than 100 million barrels of beer a year). Wisconsin brewers such as Capital, New Glarus, and Sprecher fall in the high end of this category. Brewpubs are restaurant-breweries where almost all the beer they brew is sold on the premises. Most of these little breweries make less than five thousand barrels a year. In the middle and late xvi Prefaee to the Seeond Edition 1800s in Wisconsin there were many brewpubs operating. As travelers made their way around the state, they could stop at a restaurant -often a roadhouse with overnight accommodations-and enjoy a good meal and a pint ofbeer brewed on the premises. With the reemergence of brewpubs, Wisconsin...