Brewery

A brewery is a facility that produces beer. Typically a brewery is divided into distinct sections, with each section reserved for one part of the brewing process. Breweries can take up multiple city blocks, or be a collection of equipment in a homebrewer's kitchen. The diversity of size in breweries is matched by the diversity of processes, degrees of automation, and kinds of beer produced in breweries.

Craft Brewing

Before Prohibition in the United States, breweries were local institutions, with a few exceptions. The costs involved in moving large quantities of beer while maintaining its quality necessitated that beer be made near where it was to be consumed. Prohibition, as could be expected, closed most of the breweries in the United States, and the few that were able to remain open by producing near beer, malt extract, yeast, and other beer-related products, were in an advantageous position to produce and sell beer after Prohibition was lifted. During Prohibition, the advancements in refrigeration and motorvehicles made large regional and national breweries possible. These remaining breweries quickly became large enough to be household names all over the nation, and concentrated mostly on the style with the broadest appeal: American light lagers. Local breweries, with their niche beers, were lost in America.

Related Topics:
Prohibition - United States - Near beer

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In 1978, Jimmy Carter signed into law a bill explicitly allowing people to brew beer for private consumption. As the homebrewing movement grew, homebrewers looked to re-create beers they had enjoyed in places with a more varied beer assortment. The rise of imported beers and homebrewing brought a demand for more beer styles, and locally brewed beer. Answering this need, smaller breweries started popping up across America, and a whole industry grew around the microbrewing industry.

Related Topics:
1978 - Jimmy Carter

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Craft brewing takes different forms in different countries. In America, where the infrastructure needed to be reinvented, and many brewers came from the homebrewing world, where items are adapted to use in brewing, breweries take many different forms, and are often made from adapted equipment. European craft breweries, which did not experience prohibition and have a deep cultural tradition in many areas, are often smaller versions of large breweries, and are equipped with all the bells and whistles as large breweries, such as automation and computer control of the lautering process.

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The number of craft brewers in the United States has been slowly declining in the last decade, while craft brewers have made up a larger percentage of beer sales in America, likely reflecting a more discriminating customer, who is less tolerant of off flavors and poorly made beers.

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