The other night I was watching Anthony Bourdain's recent No Reservations episode, shot in Kansas City. It seemed to me that whenever they showed him drinking beer, it was a selection from Boulevard. Which of course is a perfectly good choice, Boulevard is one of my favorite breweries. But this got me thinking: Are there cities/areas today where one major craft brewery has an overwhelmingly dominant share of the local market, so much so that their beers are basically everywhere? In my mind at least it seems like you might find New Glarus beers everywhere in certain parts of Wisconsin, or maybe Bell's or Founders across Michigan. Or Boulevard in KC, or Shiner Bock in Texas. I haven't been to any of these places recently, so I don't know. Maybe selection is a lot more heterogeneous everywhere (as it is in Seattle, where you can basically find beer from San Diego to Juneau, plus a lot of points much farther east and west). Anyway, my questions for discussion are: Are there places like I describe above? And if so, for those of you living in markets like this, do you view it as a source of pride or resentment (pride in your local brewery, resentment at the lack of choice/alternatives)? Cheers! EDIT: I should clarify, I'm mostly talking about restaurants/bars here, not liquor stores and bottle shops. I assume there's generally more variety in the latter than in the former everywhere.
I'm not too familiar, but at least with Michigan, I can see where an outsider may think that Bell's/Founders would take up the lions share of the market, and they do make up a lot of it, but Michigan beer drinkers aren't as loyal to a brand, but are more loyal to beer from the state of Michigan.
Surly is very strong in Minneapolis, but in no way does it hurt the selection of taps here , Minneapolis has many many bars with various selections on tap that are ever changing
Its not really the same, because there is so much variety, but you can find Anchor Steam at any bar in San Francisco, I guess that would be the closest. But I have friends who go to Chico and Sierra Nevada is dominant there. They are proud to have Sierra, not at all resentful.
Founders and Bell's are big and popular here in Michigan, but I always see plenty of New Holland and Short's right along side them in the stores. Then there's so many other good breweries here that none can be truly considered dominant.
I find that most of the restaurants and bars here in the Austin area do a good job of trying to showcase the whole range of Texas breweries that are currently producing, from the big ones like St. Arnold, Rahr and Shiner, to the smaller/newer ones like Jester King, Austin Beerworks, Hops and Grain, etc. So I think there is more of an effort to support the entire state. Of course, our antiquated TABC laws don't help that, in that we don't get a lot of the stuff I see people on here talking about because of licensing issues....
Basically every store, restaurant and gas station in northeast Ohio stocks Great Lakes. A fair number will also have some Thirsty Dog sixers.
