Consolidation in the beer market bothers me less than it does my beer nerd friends. Many of the best-known, most-loved independent breweries run into major quality problems trying to scale up their output. ABI probably has advantages in regulating quality. Breweries that don't want to scale are unlikely to sell in the first place.
The whiskey market is almost entirely consolidated; you have to go out of your way to find quality products that aren't traceable to large concerns, despite a proliferation of brands. But we're in a 2-decade renaissance in whiskey quality (despite the No Age Statement movement!) and availability. The median big-brand whiskey is overwhelmingly more likely to be good than the median independent whiskey.
The barriers to entry for beer are far, far lower than for whiskey. We're not going to run out of microbreweries, or of interesting new beers. Why are beer nerds so freaked out about this?
(I have nothing useful to say about beer rating sites, which I think are pretty sketchy to begin with.)
The whiskey market is almost entirely consolidated; you have to go out of your way to find quality products that aren't traceable to large concerns, despite a proliferation of brands. But we're in a 2-decade renaissance in whiskey quality (despite the No Age Statement movement!) and availability. The median big-brand whiskey is overwhelmingly more likely to be good than the median independent whiskey.
The barriers to entry for beer are far, far lower than for whiskey. We're not going to run out of microbreweries, or of interesting new beers. Why are beer nerds so freaked out about this?
(I have nothing useful to say about beer rating sites, which I think are pretty sketchy to begin with.)