How Microbrew Can Save the World

[Ian David]

How Microbrew Can Save the World

By Chris O'Brien, Foreign Policy in Focus. Posted October 25, 2006.

Small-scale, homebrew beer production plays a vital role in sustainable development throughout the world.

The world's cup runneth over with living beer traditions. But this vast repository of cultural brewing capital is under attack by global corporations. The top five brewing companies, all of which are American- or European-owned, control 41 percent of the world market. Perversely, economists and politicians calculate the conquest by industrial breweries as economic growth while the value of small-scale traditional brewing goes uncounted. Much will be lost if this global "beerodiversity" is lost to the forces of corporate-led homogenization.

The globalization of beer not only destroys the social, spiritual, and health-related benefits of small-scale home beer production. It also undercuts the vital role that home brewing plays in sustainable development throughout the world. For 10,000 years, brewing has been conducted at home, primarily by women, who were entrusted with safeguarding traditions that strengthen social bonds and build community identity. As an important component of diet, beer was distributed by female household heads according to the values of the community, which moderated consumption to socially acceptable levels. As an inherently small-scale and local endeavor, brewing also has had a low impact on environmental resources, relying on renewable energy sources and requiring little or no packaging or shipping.

African Traditions

Despite the seemingly inexorable march of the global corporate beer industry, many African brewing traditions persist in the hands of rural women who brew at home. Throughout Africa, most brewing and drinking still occurs in the home, among family, and within the boundaries of community standards. Four times more homebrew than commercial-industrial brews is sold in Africa, which doesn't even include the great volumes of homebrewed beer consumed outside the cash economy. Women across sub-Saharan Africa use native grains like sorghum, millet, and teff, to brew drinks like rammoora, farsi, changaa, tella, and countless other uniquely African beer styles, often using homegrown and hand-malted brewing grains and handpicked herbs and spices.

This brewing provides a degree of economic empowerment to millions of African women. A study conducted in Uganda and Kenya found that 80 percent of the women included in the survey brewed beer, and about half of them had brewed beer for sale at some point in their lives. According to the survey, very few men brewed, and virtually none of them ever brewed beer for sale. Yet, men were found to account for a majority of the consumption. In this way, home-brewing beer accords women a degree of social and economic influence, helping to maintain a peaceful balance of power between the genders, providing women with a source of income and respect within the household.

More:
http://www.alternet.org/story/43435/

[bananas]

1. And you can make your own Vegemite from the brewers yeast! nt

[DaveJ]

2. Unfortunately this couldn't be pulled off in the U.S.

With the cost of licenses and taxes there would be no way to make money selling to friends and neighbors. Well at least apparently Africans can enjoy that freedom. Hope it works out.

[Warpy]

3. Microbreweries are in cities all over the country now

and the worst beer they produce is better than the carbonated cat pee the corporate breweries produce.

The giveaway is that corporate beer has to be drunk ice cold. Micro brewed beer can be drunk and enjoyed at room temperature. Try that with Bud. Or Coors. Or Schlitz. P'tooey.

It's legal to do homebrew for home consumption or even parties. It's just not legal to hang up a sign and sell it without a license.