This week Denver hosts the Great American Beer Festival, which has turned in to one of the largest craft beer meetings in the country. This year 800 breweries from all over the country will converge on the Colorado Convention Center to sport their brews to around 70,000 attendees. That’s about the population of Santa Fe, all thinking about and drinking about beer for three days.
New Mexico has about 30 breweries now, according to New Mexico Magazine while Colorado has about 400! Remember that the New Mexico just recently got to a population of around 2 million people while Colorado has 5.6 million people. Most of those people live on the Front Range from Pueblo to Fort Collins. Even so, about 15 breweries closed in Colorado in the last year, leading many people to worry that craft beer has peaked.
In fact, the growth rate of the craft beer scene nationally and regionally has slowed but it is still growing. Last year around 1000 new breweries opened across the US while about 165 closed. There are 6266 breweries operating in the US. In 2012 there were only 2400. The industry is still growing but there are only so many beer-heads and with many younger people turning to mixed drinks made from craft distilleries, we are losing some of the younger people to fill in when the oldsters drop out. (If anything, legal marijuana should increase the demand for quality beer.)
According to the Colorado Brewer’s Guild, breweries in Colorado bring about $3 billion to the state. Starting in January, grocery stores in Colorado will be able to sell full strength beer. For decades all the beer in Colorado grocery stores has been 3.2 beer. Good for hydration but little else. Some craft brewers worry that the grocery store change could favor the mega breweries like Coors which makes a fake micro brew called “Native.” They also make Blue Moon, a mega Belgian style white.
I can remember going to beer halls in Durango, Co in the mid 1970s that catered to the college crowd with 3.2 beer only. We were happy to buy Coors which was about the only beer available in 3.2. (Who knows if the Coors sold in liquor stores in those days had more than 3.2 percent.) It was as if adolescents today were able to buy weak marijuana and the stronger stuff after 21. Doesn’t make any sense, but who knows, maybe Colorado saved some lives on the highways with the weak beer for kids and the weak beer sold in grocery stores currently.
The Great American Beer Festival goes from today (9/20/18 through Sunday.
