Exhibit A
Porter City Tavern in Raleigh will now serve only North Carolina beers on tap (tip of the hat to Geistbear).
Exhibit B
Artisinal Imports current newsletter makes a case for diversity. In case the link quits working or you don’t want to take the time, a few highlights:
“In Minneapolis there has been a lemming-like migration toward US-only beer lists in new bars/restaurants and some older, well established beer bars are contemplating the elimination of imports.”
“It is a very rare bar in Europe that offers beers from other countries. In Germany you drink German beers. In Belgium you drink Belgian beers. Period.”
“When bars or restaurants limit themselves, and their customers, to beer only from the US or only from one state or region, the result can be a narrowing of focus which over time will diminish the vibrancy of the US beer market.”
I’ll leave the thinking and concluding up to you.
That’s a daft point about Europe. It’s true, but the bars people talk about, the ones that win awards, tend to be the ones with the carefully selected international beer lists.
Don’t get me started on the A-holes around the Twin Cities. Some really good bars are starting to do really stupid things. I’m not 100% of any sort of beer from anywhere. I really do like the fact that they are focusing on local beers. I think thats been missing for a very long time. However, to turn a blind eye does no one any good. No one learns in a vacuum. There should be a happy ‘grey’ area. The beers that some places now are getting are absolutely esoteric in that you can rarely find them in their home countries! Somethign that is bugging me more than this is the price difference. A pint of Summit pale brewed a mere 5 miles from two separate locations can differ in price as much as $3/ pint. WTH are people thinking….
Local is great but you should also show the entire forest for the trees.
I think local is great. I mean, I won’t touch an imported pale lager when I can get really good (and cheaper) ones made here (in CZ), but Stouts, PA’s, non lagered beers in general? I haven’t got much to choose from there, so imported it is, and I’ve got not problem with that and I don’t see why other people should.
I hope this trend doesn’t catch on. There’s more than a few wonderful Belgian breweries that depend on having there beer’s imported just to stay in business.
Every business has to decide how they will define their niche, and differentiate themselves from their competitors. In a crowded market, this is one step that a single proprietor is taking to stand out from the bunch.
I will not disagree with Artisan Imports, or any commenter, that it has the potential to diminish variety if every bar, everywhere were to do this. But I fail to see how this is any different than a restaurant owner deciding to focus on a specific regional cuisine, or decides to use only locally grown and raised ingredients.
Whether food or beer, local-only could be potentially limiting to the consumers that decide to patronize bars or restaurants that decide upon that focus. Supporters of local-only or local-focus would argue that it instead provides an opportunity to showcase the vibrancy and diversity of the *locally* produced goods, many of which are lost in the noise of big-box retailing or restaurants.
When tap handles are not dominated by BMC, they are taken over by Sam Adams, Sierra Nevada, New Belgium, and others. This type of decision to go local-only is providing a guaranteed outlet to smaller brewers self-distributing, or pushed to the edges of our three-tier distribution system.
Porter’s is far from the only game in town in Raleigh ~ http://beermapping.com/maps/citymaps.php?m=triangle ~ as this is the case, I doubt very seriously that, for example, any “Belgian breweries that depend on having there beer’s imported just to stay in business,” or any of the American craft breweries from out of state, will feel the effects of Porter’s decision. Instead, I think it is a potential lifeline to those trying to break into the industry.
As a consumer I want variety and choice. Excluding beer because it doesn’t come from down the street removes some of the incentive on a brewery to make the very best beer in the world and rewards mediocrity.