Who would have imagined it? Yuengling is both the largest and oldest American brewery. Does this make the Mid Atlantic region the suds capital of the USA? Do we get fancy capes and crowns? Tiaras? Not yet, probably (hopefully) no.
What it does mean is that Yuengling beat out the Boston Beer Company for the top spot. I think we are all surprised to hear that the top spot was between our beloved lager and Sam Adams. What the hell happened to Budweiser and Coors? Did all the rednecks suddenly disappear, ala Alcatraz? Sadly, no. It’s just because all the big boys (MillerCoors and Anheuser Busch) are now multinational corporations with headquarters in Canada and Europe.
In fact, only about 7% of all beer drunk in the USA is made by an American brewery. If anything, Yuengling is the tallest of the dwarfs, owning 1.2% of the beer-drinking market. Boston Beer Company has about 1.1%. In any case, let’s put it in the win column. After all, we’ve been the unheralded birthplace of American beer for a long time now. In 1840, the Wagner Brewery in Philly brewed the first lager in America, not to mention Pittsburgh Brewing developed the first pull-top can.