Noah Smith, Columnist

Craft Brewing as a Model for Helping the Middle Class

There are other industries where the same approach should work.

February 1, 2018 at 10:00 AM UTC

Noah Smith is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He was an assistant professor of finance at Stony Brook University, and he blogs at Noahpinion.

That's not a Bud.
Photographer: Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald/Getty Images

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Derek Thompson of the Atlantic has a very interesting article about the craft-brewing industry that has been receiving a lot of well-deserved attention. In an age when most industries are becoming more concentrated, beer is slowly becoming less so:

The industry is employing a growing number of Americans -- 128,768 as of 2016. Craft-beer sales in the U.S. grew 6.2 percent in 2016, while U.S. exports of craft beer rose by 4.4 percent. These gains are coming even as overall beer sales were flat, meaning big corporate brewers are in decline. The craft-beer revolution has also increased quality and variety (as any beer drinker knows), making consumers willing to pay more for beer.