This has been coming for a while.
In the 90s there was a market shakeout partly because a lot of the new breweries were bad.
What happens this time around when there are dozens of breweries within in a 20 mile radius of your bar/pub and they're all good?
Even craft beer geeks in the US want to drink the big national brands like Founders and Stone and Oskar Blues. So if you give them a few taps in your pub permanently, then reserve a few taps for seasonals, and a few more for imports - even if you have 50 lines, how many does that really leave for locals?
Look at the realtime draft list[/url:v7ufb9yj] for The Pony Club in NYC.
They don't do imports, rotate all their taps, and still only serve (as of writing) 25% local.
Toronado[/url:v7ufb9yj] who, outside a few Belgians, ignore everything that's not West Coast but can't find room for more than a fraction of the local breweries.
As ever more breweries come online, the next struggle in craft beer (and in Ireland, too, don't be fooled) will not be a push for quality, it will be a battle for shelf space and mind share.
