This post over at Appellation Beer made us think again about beer’s status in the world.
A lot of people see it as a basic right in life. They get annoyed when it’s taxed and/or the price goes up.
Unfortunately, it’s a heavily processed product. Yes, beer is a processed food. And like all processed food, it is very energy intensive. Think about the energy used in growing barley; malting the barley; mashing the barley; throwing most of it away and boiling the remaining liquid; chilling the remaining liquid; moving, storing and distributing the the finished product, sometimes to the opposite side of the world.
And then, nature takes a funny turn for a year or two, malt and hops go up in price, and we suddenly find that what once we drank as a cheap alternative to clean water has become an expensive luxury.
So, beer really ought to be expensive, and we probably ought to consume it more thoughtfully.
What options do the brewers and distributors have for keeping the price down? Reducing the quality, for one. Or squeezing the people in the supply chain, as in this depressing tale from Tyson.
Personally, we’d rather pay a fiver for our pint than damage the planet, or people’s livelihoods. Is that what it’s going to come to?
For a lot more on related topics, from a more learned writer than us, see Chris O’Brien’s Beer Activist blog.
Bailey