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Originally Posted by xzmattzx
I'm into craft beers, and I like having more breweries. But, in the end, it just boils down that craft breweries are just different versions of restaurants, and there are restaurants everywhere already. So, I wouldn't expect this to be some cure-all that revitalizes every corner of the country.
Keep in mind that to reduce costs, some breweries are located in industrial parks, alongside UPS or Walmart distribution centers, or next to heating and plumbing offices, etc. These are not going to help Main Street America grow. They are still a net positive for the economy, since consumers will have more options, and successful breweries will employ more people, regardless of where they are located.
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I know what you're saying, but what you're describing is not the case everywhere.
In western PA, from Pittsburgh up to Erie, craft breweries have often set up shop relatively cheaply in old buildings on the "Main Streets" of economically depressed towns and neighborhoods. Besides all the breweries that have helped to revitalize city neighborhoods, so many smaller towns have their own brewpubs helping to revitalize long dead business districts of places like Sharpsburg, Millvale, Homestead, Meadville, Titusville, Braddock (!), Springdale, the list goes on an on.
They are serious anchors of revitalization around here, bringing people in droves to sample something different (in a way no restaturant could) to neighborhoods and towns that have been stagnant to dying for 40 years.
Just one example of many throughout western PA... Sharpsburg... an old, urban former industrial town just across the river from Pittsburgh city proper. Rusty as they come, long forgotten, and rarely visited (since there was no good reason to) by Pittsburgers... it now has 2 acclaimed breweries that have opened within the past 2 years:
Dancing Gnome
Hitchhiker (in former Fort Pitt Brewery power plant building)
10 years ago, this wouldn't be fathomable. Now Sharpsburg is seeing startup tech/creative firms locating there, housing renovations, and property values appreciating considerably. Is this solely because of the breweries? No, but they are first-mover contributors to it... often belwethers of better things to come.
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Seriously though, I'd say that Ravenswood Ave., Chicago's "Malt Row", is steadily adding to the manufacturing presence of both the specific neighborhood as well as surrounding neighborhoods. It's also adding to the overall economic vitality of what was once a fairly moribund, somewhat depressed part of the city which is now doing quite well, partly due to the draw of a solid number of breweries and associated businesses located in a concentrated area.
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