TIL that American wine had a terrible reputation until an event in 1976, called the Judgment of Paris. Wine industry luminaries blind tasted California and renowned French wines, side by side, and scored them. Surprisingly, the winning red and white wines were both from California.

Haha. No. You did not create 'craft beer'. The US scene worked with UK CAMRA who have existed since 1971 to promote ales around the world for ideas to reinvigorate the microbrewery trade in the US which has only happened recently and despite having 5x the population you guys have about 4k breweries to the UK's 2k that put out over 11 thousand different beers a year.

We have no purity laws on what has to be in beer, most countries dont and we've been innovating for decades, Germany is the exception not the rule. Aside from variations of set flavour combinations the types (or IPA, Stouts, Amber etc) and brewing methods have all been copied from the UK or Belgium.

If you think you dominate the scene, I think this is a similar situation to you winning the 'world series'

/r/todayilearned Thread Parent Link - vinepair.com