[laurencerowe]

I moved to the US about a decade ago, but I feel like microbreweries were pretty rare in the UK during the 90's and 00's, I only really came across a couple living in Manchester at the time (a couple more have opened since) while there are several within a couple miles of me in San Francisco.

Most real ale in Britain was brewed in traditional breweries that had been going for a century or more that had either escaped being rolled into one of the majors or revived one of the old breweries abandoned by them, like Black Sheep in the old Lightfoot's Brewery.

By contrast the UK microbreweries often seemed more influenced by the US craft beer style which developed from home brewing since their traditional breweries were all shut down during prohibition.

[ProxCoques]

I see - I got the impression that the 70-80's was a sort of dark age for beer in the UK, with mass-produced low-quality stuff from the likes of Watneys and Carslberg etc. taking over, which CAMRA was a reaction against.

[laurencerowe]

I think that’s true, it just seems to have been more a case of avoiding the extinction of traditional brewing in the UK vs starting from scratch in the US.