Tasting 16 craft beer classics: Flagship February shines light on brands left behind
Flagships are faltering.
Fortunately for them, there's Flagship February.
The monthlong initiative, launched in a burst of social media inspiration by Canadian beer writer Stephen Beaumont, is meant to highlight "the flagship beers that got us here," according to the Flagship February website.
"Here" is a nation rife with more than 7,000 breweries - and another 1,000 or so in Canada - which offer seemingly endless options for beer drinkers. Those options stand in blessed contrast to the landscape of a generation ago, when fewer than 100 breweries churned out a handful of brands that accounted for most of our beer drinking.
The early antidotes to that bland landscape were craft breweries, most of which were built on the identity of a single beer - a flagship. Anchor Steam. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. Samuel Adams Boston Lager. Fat Tire Amber Ale. Lagunitas IPA.
But the recent proliferation of
