![]() ![]() ![]() (Little breweries have a trade organization similar to the Brewers Association fighting for these changes.)īack to Norte, which is on the fifth floor of what is mostly a parking lot, but inside it looks much like anything you’d find in Portland-or San Diego. This limits their reach to upper-end bars and restaurants, but for an industry that is still less than 1% of the market, is not yet hobbling growth. (I found many who were mystified by our three-tier system.) Tax law is another fight they have yet to wage-the structure means that craft breweries end up paying twice as much to the government, with concomitant price hikes to the customer. It's an arrangement that seems to work out for them I found no brewers who thought access to market was a problem. This number is to reduce to 20 percent by 2018.īreweries in Mexico now sell directly to the retailer. On July 11th, 2013, the CFC announced a decision that these two companies would have to limit their exclusivity contracts to 25 percent of their points of sale in small grocery stores, restaurants, and bars, effective immediately. Then in 2013 that all changed: The two companies do so by holding exclusivity agreements with a large number of restaurants and bars throughout Mexico, limiting the access of micro - brewed and other beers not distributed by the two companies. They held powerful exclusivity contracts with retailers that kept small breweries out, which made starting a brewery dicey in the extreme. Mexico is dominated by a duopoly of giants-Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma and Grupo Modelo-who until 2013 had absolute control over the market. The reason-as is so often the case-is because of legal barriers. You might therefore reasonably ask why craft brewing started so late in Baja. They are in many respects twin cities divided by an international border, and residents wash back and forth each day like the rising and falling tide (albeit one slowed considerably by border guards on the northbound side). Tijuana and San Diego have shared a boozy relationship dating back nearly a century. "Today there are over 600." Over the past year, they've been opening at a rate of more than one a day. "Two years ago-well, in 2014, let's say, there were fifty or as many as 75 breweries," he told me. One of the people most able to see the scope of the market is Tero Moliis, who founded an ambitious ratings app called Maltapp. That somewhat overstates things, however. The first significant craft brewery was Minerva, from Jalisco, launched in 2003. It's a surprisingly recent phenomenon, dating back a little more than a decade. If you can't call to mind a Mexican craft brewery, don't feel too bad. This kind of cultural and human resource exchange is typical. Later on I'd meet Ivan Maldonado, a brewer at Silenus, another Tijuana brewery he also brewed across the border at Fall Brewing. Our next stop was just south in Tijuana ("TJ" to locals) at Norte Brewing-one of the country's best-which is owned by Carlos Macklis, who splits his time between the two cities. This turned out to be a better metaphor than I imagined it's impossible to imagine the breweries of Baja California emerging in the numbers or form they have without this brewing mecca right on their border. I'd just flown in from Portland, and Hector Ferreira thought it would be a shame to miss one of San Diego's bounty when so many were at hand. My journey into cervezas artesanales-Mexican craft beer-began at Societe Brewing in San Diego. ![]()
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