Batz is right, in a way, there isn't the actual diversity in Australia due to our small population but we have at least as many micro-breweries as the US in relative terms.
Population of the US 310,531,000, number of craft breweries 1,595 (
ref). = 194,690 people per craft brewery.
Population of Australia 22,572,000, number of craft breweries 138*. = 163,565 people per craft brewery.
Based on this Australia has as many or maybe more craft breweries per capita than the US. We just need more people in Australia to increase the actual diversity of beers...
Plus - the US has the same issues with their majors as we do - taking up loads of shelf space in supermarkets:
I tend to disagree about Americans being, on average,
more willing to experiment with new beers than Australians - the Australian beer market has seen similar trends in sales as the US over the last few years. Overall beer sales are
declining in the US but craft beer has grown over the last couple of years and similarly,
Fosters and VB have, over the last 18months, lost ground to Little Creatures, Coopers' and others. We have similar tastes, both the average drinker and ones willing to experiment. And your average bogan VB drinker is not much different from an American trailer trash drinker of bud-light.
So what's the problem? I put it down to pretty much one thing: federal excise.
The US doesn't tax it's beer anywhere near as much as we do. I was in Manhattan the year before last in a tiny (expensive, relatively speaking) "bodega" or corner store and they had six-packs of Coopers' Pale imported from Australia selling for $8USD! This is because brewers and winemakers are exempt from federal excise in Australia if the stock is being exported. Last year when I was in California for a mate's wedding the first thing I did after getting my hire-car and getting the **** out of LA was to pull into a little liquor store and buy a mixed case of awesomeness; when I approached the counter with a six-pack of 355mL Stone Oaked Arrogant ******* Ale the dude said "WHOAH! That's the most expensive sixpack we have, are you sure you want it?" and I said "How much?" he replied "$14.99" - SOLD!
Excise on alcohol in Australia beers (especially bottled beer) is enormous.
$40.46 paid for every 1L of alcohol in beer packaged in containers not exceeding 48L - that equates to about $4/six-pack of 5% beer. If you wanted to make/sell a sixpack of a beer equivalent to the awesome Stone Arrogant ******* Ale with an alcohol content of 7.2%alc/vol then you'd be paying $5.75 before you had even sold it to a distributor.
In the US, it's decidedly cheaper.
$18USd per 31 Gallons of beer (regardless of the alcoholic strength). This equates to $0.30 per sixpack of beer (any beer)... Oops! Forgot. If you are a small brewery in the US, one who makes less than 2 million barrels a year (238 million litres or there abouts) you only pay $7 per barrel on your first 60,000 barrels - so $0.12 per sixpack of beer. This is rather like the wine equalisation tax in Australia - except we don't have it for beer. poo.
Also, Chimay is cheaper in Canada cos we pay
customs duty at an equivalent rate to ATO alcohol excise on imported alcohol.
I suggest Australia's beer excise slows the rate of experimentation in breweries - you notice how (until "Single Batch" started coming out) that Little Creatures went from their super-awesome LCPA to brewing LCBA (tastes like a dumbed-down, filtered LCPA) to Pilsner, to Rogers'? Don't get me wrong, these beers are well made and quite tasty, but they pale in comparison (pardon the pun) when compared with LCPA. If you look at similar US craft breweries they make their flagship beer and then they go out and "double" it or "double oak" it or super-maxi-triple-upsize-darken-age-it! But this would be financially so much riskier if you were paying huge excise on beer and if that excise increased with an increase in alcohol like it is here.
Not all craft breweries are like this of course (look at Moo Brew, Jameson, Wicked Elf, Bridge Road to name a few) but I'm sure it has an effect.
Bring on the BET (beer equalisation tax) or "
give craft beer a fair go"
end of rant.
So what awesome beers are you trying Nick? I've only been to Seattle in Washington - but Pike's Brewery was a cool spot - right in the middle of undercover markets. I actually went into the markets thinking I should give beer a rest after several weeks of hitting it and within 100m of the entrance was this awesome brewery and so I thought **** it, the beer gods have led me here. Redhook and Pyramid were the only other ones I remember trying - both pretty good though!
cheers!
Dan
* (approximately - ref was Wikipedia, plus some of these breweries include things like Malt Shovel and some others I didn't see in the list - happy to be corrected but it's probably not that much different)
