Craft brewing is one of the great entrepreneurial
success stories of the past few decades. For the longest time,
America’s beer industry was dominated by a few big corporate
brewers that produced little but watery swill. But a few small
entrepreneurs who loved good beer thought there might be a market
for it. Turns out they were right.
Yet as A. Barton Hinkle explains, crony capitalism now threatens
to strangle that entrepreneurial spirit. Last week, Virginia
officials decided to hand out more than $30 million in government
subsidies to Stone Brewing Co., which will soon open its first
brewery east of the Mississippi in Richmond. As Hinkle notes, the
special favors conferred upon Stone must make central Virginia’s
longtime craft brewers gag.
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