The Economics of Beer [Hardcover]

This collection of papers looks at the beer industry across time and around the world. It is a useful update / extension to the good industry study by The US Brewing Industry: Data and Economic Analysis: Data and Economic Analysis (MIT Press, 2009).

For example, T&T themselves contribute a chapter tracking the rise of imports and craft beers in the US between 2000-2010, as well as the completion of the long process of consolidation that has left 80+% of the market in the hands of InBev and SABMiller. This is paired by a chapter on beer and antitrust by Ken Elzinga and Anthony Swisher, that provides a different perspective on the merger process. Another short but nice chapter is by Lisa George on the role of TV advertising in fostering a national market.

On the international front, a chapter on Belgian beer notes the huge variety, the shifts in demand (such as the near-disappearance of weak "table" beer that was once served with primary school lunches!) and the rise of the brewer that became InBev. Other chapters look at China, Russia and Eastern Europe; I found the latter interesting for its discussion of vertical integration, as foreign investment led to investment in hops processing and technical consulting to hops farmers, since reversed as local skills improved.

These are very much economics studies, generally from an industrial organization perspective. They're well-written and while there is little direct cross-talk between chapters (as I would phrase it, this is still an edited volume, not a "book") the quality is high and there is a good mesh of coverage. Those merely interested in beer may find parts overly dry, and of course won't know how to read a table of regression results. Even so, the presentations of market evolution in a variety of countries might even interest them. For me, it's a great supplement to the Tremblay and Tremblay volume, which I'm using in my fall 2012 industrial organization course.