E-Malt.com News article: USA: Mountaineer Brewing Co. to establish new micro-brewery in West Virginia

Mountaineer Brewing Co. is planning a full-blown brewery in Martinsburg that would ship throughout West Virginia, Associated Press said September 11.

West Virginia brewing industry foundered during Prohibition and, after the 18th Amendment was repealed, was never as strong, Mountaineer Brewing Co.’s Operations Manager Gary Brooks said. "It just never reflourished."

Mountaineer Brewing expects to restart the industry on an admittedly small scale this month, Brooks said. Currently, Mountaineer is shipping limited quantities of beer to the state from a sister company, Barley and Hops Grill & Microbrewery in Frederick, Md.

Brooks' company is joining an industry that's just a bit flat in West Virginia.

The state has just four so-called brew pubs, a number that Cindy Clark, who's in charge of beer at the state Alcohol Beverage Control Administration, says has stayed about the same.

Brewing, distributing and selling beers from Budweiser to Blackwater Brewing Co.'s Black Diamond Stout contributes US$369 million to West Virginia’s economy, according to a recent study commissioned by the Washington, D.C.-based Beer Institute and the National Beer Wholesalers Association.

Moreover, the industry employs more than 6,600 people, whose salaries and benefits top US$130 million annually, according to the study.

But the business isn't growing. Taxes and licenses fees have ranged between US$8.3 million and US$8.5 million for the past five years, according to the state tax department.

Brooks cites numerous reasons, everything from the population density, or lack thereof, to the dominance of St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch Companies Inc., brewer of Budweiser.

And West Virginia beer drinkers tend to prefer the mainstream taste of Budweiser and Miller, Brooks said. "Craft beers just have not been in the state because, quite honestly, they have not been introduced," he said.

But there are signs that West Virginians' tastes are getting broader.

"We introduced our blonde beer," Brooks said. "It took off, but our nut brown and our pale ale and stout are just going bigger and bigger every day."


13 September, 2006