“Choosing beer may not be easy, but it sure is fun”

Entrepreneur.com  recently wrote an article about the merits of craft beer.  Highlights include:

“Once upon a time, beer drinkers only had three major choices when looking to pop a cold one: Budweiser, Miller and Coors. Now the market is flooded with imports, seasonal brews and variations of the old classics. Choosing which beer to drink may have been easier back then, but now it’s much more fun.” 

“According to the Brewers Association, there are more than 1,400 craft brewers in the U.S., including microbreweries. Craft beer industry sales have increased nearly 31 percent over the last three years, outpacing beer, wine and spirits in supermarket sales.”

“‘Twenty years ago, people would have laughed at you if you talked about pairing beer with food, but now I think the average consumer has a better understanding of the breadth and variety [of beer] available today,’ says Ray Daniels, president of the Craft Beer Institute and founder of the Cicerone Certification Program, the first official beer sommelier certification program, launched in October 2007. ‘Unlike wine sommeliers, beer sommeliers are less about the snooty tableside presentation and more about better quality beer in the consumer’s glass.’”

Full article