Nowhere To Go But Up

The dreaded craft beer bubble. There is perhaps no greater bogeyman in the world of craft brewing, and no greater straw man in debates over its future. Derided early on as a fluke, a blip, a passing trend, craft brewers slowly, purposefully propelled themselves forward, even if they didn’t always know where they were going.

- Andy Crouch

To be sure, there were stumbles along the way, among them the much discussed housecleaning of the mid-1990's. Debates can be had about the true severity of this era, when some less-than qualified players entered, then quickly exited the industry. But what cannot be denied is that the beer world of 2016 looks nothing like that of 20 years ago.

In 1996, craft breweries still barely registered with the public. Beyond a small but energetic subset of drinkers, Americans knew very little of flavorful beer let alone anything called “craft.” Small brewers—and almost all of them were small—were dubbed “micro” both to describe their size but also to undermine the seriousness of their aims. These small brewers were pioneers, with visions of not just merely surviving, but of vanquishing bigger foes and making the populace bend to their dreams of redefining American beer.