Does it seem to anyone else like the craft beer thing has peaked already and is maybe on a slight decline? Richmond has seen several craft breweries close, and hardly any new ones have opened. I feel like the problem continues to be the distributors, who favor the bigger players like Devil’s Backbone (owned by Anheiser-Busch) and the various breweries owned by Boston Beer Company. Smaller operations are left to struggle to do their own distributing or rely solely on sales at their taphouse locations. I think there was a bill in the VA legislature not long ago that would’ve cleared away regulator hurdles for the smaller operations, but that bill didn’t go anywhere.
Incorrect, corporate capture of regulators is what leads to oligarchies and corruption.
Yeah, so being highly tied up by regulators, it leads to corporate capture and oligarchies and corruption.
That would be lack of laws preventing corporate capture and the breakdown of internal regulations to prevent it. Are you implying that if there was no regulation it would be a different story?
No, I’m sure not. It’s not even clear that we mean the same thing by “regulation”. The market I’m speaking about is in a small state with a lot of “good ol’ boy” type deals and they’ve granted regional monopolies to certain companies. Lighter regulation to the tune of opening the market to competition would be quite beneficial for consumers, which is not even remotely the same thing as no regulation.
Well I’m glad to hear that you’re not intentionally calling for deregulation, but I think you are missing the potential downsides. “Opening” the market to competition will only invite even larger distributors, which would outcompete whatever local monopoly is currently there by driving down initial prices and inflate them later once it is again a monopoly. You’d be looking at the same issue again, now with less regulation. How would that be beneficial? Why wouldn’t, say, a regulation for requiring more options for those that have illnesses be a better option? Again, this seems like a corporate capture issue where the solution is to add a regulation requiring more than 1 distributor, or a rewriting of the regulations, not to just have less.
Also, I’m curious, I looked into gf beer and saw warnings about not being celiac safe still. Do you know how its differentiated?
Whatever system they could come up with that increased the variety in the state would be welcome. Prices aren’t bad but I’d like some other products in the aforementioned areas and the store managers I talked to felt the same way, but there’s no way for them to get them. I feel like if there’s going to be regional monopolies we might as well let the state operate the distribution like in some eastern US states.
Yes, there are two kinds of beer in that regard. Some companies make something called “gluten removed” or reduced which is not safe for people with celiac. It means they brewed the beer using regular grains (barley, wheat etc) used a clarification enzyme in large amounts to break down the gluten. This it leaves fragments of gluten protein that may or may not be immunogenic. We’re trying to avoid .002% gluten, also. Technically these beers should not be called “gluten free” but some people make that error.
Actual gluten free beer is made from non-gluten grains and, like gluten free bread, is safe for people with celiac as long as the grains aren’t accidentally contaminated with wheat/barley/rye. Common grains are millet, buckwheat and rice. Examples of breweries that make GF beer are Holidaily, Evasion, Glutenberg, Ground Breaker and Ghostfish.
I totally understand your frustration with lack of celiac support. I work in the bread industry and so many just turn their nose up at even the idea of gluten free bread; they can’t imagine even caring about people who suffer from celiac and it disgusts me. Obviously you’re well aware of the problems that have arisen since the gluten-free fad, but I just want to say I’m sorry that its made it even worse for yall. I watched it happen with bread, people trying to skirt regulations to have “gluten-free bread,” which I can say for certain didn’t meet standards.
Have you considered homebrew? It’s a weekend project these days (and another later on), but that isnt to say its not an undertaking. I met a guy at a party that has celiac and they brew their own after an incident (it was right around the GF fad but the details weren’t well relayed).
Yeah! Here are my thoughts on that. The effects of the gluten free health fad are complex. Some people credit it with increasing the availability of gluten free brands and products in stores. The variety of products labeled gluten free or certified gluten free has definitely increased over the past several years and I can’t imagine they’re all intended for people with diagnosed Celiac, who make up less than 1% of the population. They’re generally safe for Celiac and the quality has gone up a lot on average as well. It probably increased the number of restaurants offering a GF menu, but that’s more questionable - other than dedicated GF restaurants, which exist but are still rare, a lot of restaurants don’t get it quite right, so that doesn’t really help. Another angle is that non-celiac gluten intolerance has emerged as an issue that possibly up to 5% of people experience, but medical science hasn’t quite sussed it out yet.
The ‘backlash’ is something I never thought I’d have to deal with regarding a disease, and that’s partially understandable due to how ridiculous some people were about eating GF for health (things that annoyed restaurant workers like making a big deal about GF pasta and then ordering a beer with it). However, I believe that people should be able to eat however they want without judgement from other people - if someone wants to avoid gluten, so what? The trend got a strange cultural aspect where it was associated with hipsters or yuppies from the coasts, basically US liberals (as in Democratic party), so it took on quasi-political vibes. The negative attitudes are much like what some people have regarding vegetarians or vegans. People act like it’s snooty, like they think about vegetarians (“they think they’re better than us! Too good for our food!”), or some sort of affectation. And then, a lot of people - even some doctors and nurses - believe that Celiac is ‘fake’, or can be cured, or doesn’t exist at all, and they act like people with Celiac are anxious or deluded, which is ridiculous. A lot of people confuse legit Celiac with non-celiac gluten intolerance, which is more like lactose intolerance - it can be very uncomfortable but it isn’t an autoimmune disease.
I looked into brewing my own beer partially because I wanted non-alcoholic gluten free beer, which is quite a niche. Overall I decided that beer was more complicated than I was willing to deal with at the time. I did get some simple brewing kits and made a few ciders/wines, basically prison hooch style, and that was fun though they were hardly amazingly flavorful.