Cult of Camra
To find out why it happened here you probably have to go back 50 years, back to another era of local brews and breweries. Then came a first wave of efficiency-led beer company mergers, and the rise of imported continental lagers that were lighter and fizzier than traditional British beer.
In reaction to the growing uniformity of beer sold in Britain, a group of enthusiastic drinkers got together in 1971 to form Camra, the Campaign for Real Ale. And this small group of enthusiasts had enormous impact.
They were successful probably because they were single-minded in their antipathy to one thing - fizzy mass produced beer.
Camra raised consciousness about a deeply historic heritage that was under threat by the efficiency drives led by the bean counters who rose to management prominence in British companies in the 1960s and 70s.
The other thing that Camra did was that it chimed with the revolution in taste that was breaking out all over the UK. Brits were travelling abroad, trying out foreign food and drink, growing impatient with the general standards of what was foisted on them at home.
Hops away
It started in kitchens and garages. People who learnt how to brew their own beer got ambitious. They found premises such as railway arches, and scraped the money together to buy the brewing equipment.
It was mostly intensely local. It was driven by individual experimenting. The craft brewing revolution was under way.
they make. They relish the story of it. And many of them are astonishingly unbusinesslike. They don't mind being small, indeed it seems natural.
They cluster, and don't mind the competition. Indeed, they say they help each other out over distribution and occasional supply shortages. Run out of yeast? A brewery half a mile away by bike will let you have some. Need fruit for an experimental damson brew? The micro jam factory in an adjoining railway arch has a supplier.
It's rather cozy. And the cosiness extends to the ambitions of quite a few of the micro brewers I encountered. Although they've been very successful so far, they don't particularly want to grow huge and make vast sums of money.
They say they would prefer to be proud of what they make, share the experience with employees who are also friends, keep ticking over, and add to the great diversity of beer now available in their particular parish.
Though it has to make money, the craft world is not so driven by it as normal businesses might think. Craftspeople like what they do with their hands and their brains, and that is a very important part of how they do it.
Sell outs
Nevertheless, some highly successful early-start artisan brewers have already sold themselves to the big groups - Sharps Brewery in Rock in Cornwall, founded 1994, is one of them.
It's now part of the giant MolsonCoors, and the bottled version of its wildly successful Doom Bar ale now comes out of a great big brewery in Burton on Trent, though draught ale is still brewed in Rock.
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