What was the national beer scene like before the oligopoly?
The current moment the beer sector is going through is an explosion of new brands, styles and breweries. There are more and more beers, and they are increasingly different from one another. We are witnessing a powder keg of stylistic variety that coincides with the ongoing boom of small producers. This situation, however, is not the first time it has occurred in Spain.
We have to go back to the 19th century. At first, beer production was subject to a royal state monopoly. In other words, the entrepreneur had to advance a large sum of money to the state to receive the license that allowed them to produce beer. This practice limited the proliferation of breweries until it was abolished in the first half of the 19th century.
Although Spain is a country with a winemaking tradition, some entrepreneurs successfully set out to start beer production in our territory at that time, taking advantage of the recent liberalization of commercial brewing. Lacking a native brewing tradition, the equipment in these first breweries mirrored—or was directly imported from—the technology of European countries with a long brewing history, such as Germany, England, and Bohemia (Czechia).
This is how the first breweries in Spain sprouted. For example, during the 19th century there were more than a dozen breweries in Madrid. Some of them were the Lavapiés brewery, the Santa Bárbara brewery, or Carlos Meins’ brewery. From that century, Mahou and El Águila have survived to this day, the latter now belonging to Heineken under the name Amstel. What did these breweries have that allowed them to endure? On the one hand, they had enough capital to modernize their facilities in line with technological innovations such as industrial refrigeration. On the other hand, they were able to brew a more “tasteless” and less bitter beer that suited the preferences of the majority of consumers.
Regarding styles, we must bear in mind that the population was not used to flavorful European beer, whose bitter taste tended to put off Spanish consumers, who were more fond of wine. This was one of the main reasons why many of the first breweries in Spain disappeared. Some entrepreneurs were unable to adapt European recipes to the wine-oriented palate of the Spanish population.
These circumstances led to a situation in the 20th century where the brewing industry ended up in the hands of a few leading manufacturers who pushed small producers off the board and, in some cases, absorbed them through financial means. This is why today beer brands in Spain have a strong territorial identity, such as Estrella Galicia or Estrella Levante. However, this does not stop new craft brewers from persevering with a quality product.
