![]() produced.īy 2017 the top beer producer, the giant that is Anheuser-Bush, was producing over 87.5 million barrels more than the 10th-placed biggest brewer in the USA, Mike’s Hard Lemonade Co. In 1950 the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Co, America’s top brewer, produced only 3.4 million barrels more than the now-defunct Pfieffer Brewing Co. What’s even more staggering is the difference in barrelage between the number one brewer and the brewing companies in 10th place. The top three brewers now control over 90% of the market. In 2017, Anheuser-Busch had firmly cemented its position as America’s largest brewing company with a 50% share of the market and producing a staggering 90 million barrels a year. In 1950 the top brewer in the US was Schlitz who brewed 5 million barrels of beer and had a 6% market share. In 1950 American brewers produced 83 million barrels of beer a year with 68 million barrels produced by companies other than the top four brewers.Ĭompare this with the early 21st Century when American brewers were producing over 180 million barrels of beer a year but only 8 million barrels were produced by companies outside the top three brewers. ![]() But while beer drinkers today may have a much wider choice, beer in the 1950s was much more of a regional affair.Īlthough there may be a wider choice, more of the beer market today is controlled by the top three brewers. The range of beers available to American beer lovers has exploded since the early 1980s, both with styles brewed by American craft beer breweries and imports from abroad. The Top Selling Breweries of 1950 image by Wiki Commons So what beers would your dad, or more likely your grandfather, be drinking in the 1950s? Are any of them still brewed? What happened to the rest of these once much-beloved beers? Let’s take a look at some of the most popular beers of the 1950s. Only a handful of beers were popular enough to have been distributed nationwide. It was more likely you would be drinking beers from your local brewery or one in a nearby state. (Anheuser-Busch was however growing and by the end of the 1960s would be the largest supplier of beer in the US, a position they have maintained since!) The chances were that you would be drinking a different beer from somebody two states down from you as the era of multi-national conglomerates was yet to kick in. American beers had often been accused of lacking in variety and the craft beer revolution, offering beer lovers a plethora of many different beer styles, was still another 20 to 30 years away. ![]() Drinking beer in the 1950s was a very different experience from what we enjoy today.
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