Beer has been made, dating back to 10, 000 B., monks of the middle ages were thought to be the keepers of the Bible and a basic form of beer. Before Louis Pasteur, only wild air born yeast was used. But Americans needed more. Thomas Jefferson, a revolutionary thinker of America's past thought a Beer Industry would be very influential on our economy and its growth. New Amsterdam (New York City) is where the original public brewery was located. During the Prohibition Era (1920) there were places to get beer but it was usually very week. Franklin D. Roosevelt was the man who eventually sought to get this law appealed. (www.beerinsitute.com; www.beerindustry.com; www.beerinfo.com).
Here is where today's leaders were born (Anheuser-Busch, Miller, Adolph Coors). Companies came fast, 756 companies were recorded only 2 years after this law was appealed. The beer industry went through a series of changes up until Jimmy Carter legalized Home Brewing. (www.beerinfo.com) Microbreweries (less than 15,000 barrels) became very prosperous and positive for our economy. The market size of the beer industry is incredible. (The wholesale volume in the beer industry is approximately $13.7 billion. The industry employs almost 40,000 people. In 1998 there were 1,698 businesses which were comprised of 39,500 employees. The average worker is paid about $18.27 an hour. As you can see, this is a very large industry which provides many jobs to the American workforce. National market consists of ten major competitors. The Competitors in this market are Anheuser-Busch, Miller, Stroh, G. Heileman, Adolph Coors, Pabst, Genesee, C. Schmidt, Falstaff, and Pittsburgh. (www.dted.state.mn.us/PDFs/beer.pdf).
A company has many issues to look at; marketing the beer, giving back to the community, and waste researches are a few examples. Marketing is extremely costly in this industry and takes an enormous amount of investment since many different marketing strategies are utilized today.
