To add to this. I don't think there is American craft beer being exported to any European country. And if it happens, the last one would be Germany. The purity law there doesn't even allow our beers to be made there Btw: isn't one of the great things about our beers is the relatively small distribution to maintain quality. Why would a craft brewmaster even consider Germany before expanding everywhere in the US first
Plenty of American craft brews are being exported to Europe. By exporting, they are making them in the US and shipping them to Europe, thus not making them there.
A similar thing happened with wine, which I love even more than beer (way more, actually)... American wines were once laughed at by the French. Now there are few (probably nobody, actually) who dispute that American wines are some of the absolute best in the world. The French have clung to their antiquated methods of making wine, including not allowing the use of irrigation in Bordeaux, which means the taste of the wine will vary greatly from year to year depending on rainfall. As cabernet sauvignon has become the grape of choice for the high end wine purchases, the French have also taken a backseat given their focus on making Bordeaux blends that include heavy parts of merlot, cab franc and malbec. Now don't get me wrong, I love Bordeaux blends, but many people don't like the merlot influence on the Bordeaux blends and will only buy Napa cabs....and this isn't just a US-centric view, either.
Yeah I'm sure big liquor stores with "beers of the world" might carry them. But I'm not seeing them at bars and certainly not on tap. That's what I'll call an invasion
No, a "similar thing" did not happen because the article is just making things up. There is no American craft beer movement going on in Germany
This is changing - American craft beer exports (with Europe being the largest market outside of Canada) have increased significantly in the last few years. Though I doubt outside of major cities (and mostly in Scandinavia & UK) you're going to find much of it. Also some hip restos in Paris now server Brooklyn Brewery stuff (though part of this is the BKY global hipster export marketing obnoxiousness, but taht's another story). Germany is still stuck in the reiheitsgebot past, but a few of the brewers are starting to experiment finally (Bayerischer Banhof from Leipzig has made a lot of non-German styles recently taht are showing up in the US)
