Andre Castillo
Prof. Rogers
Democracy, Rights, and Empire
4 November 2013
Beer-Brewing: The Cause for Social Polarization Let’s say you have a favorite locally owned ice cream shop in your hometown. You love all their flavors and the shop’s intimate atmosphere. You prefer it to any other ice cream shop, even over big name shops like Baskin Robbins or Coldstone Creamery. The taste of their ice cream is way better than from any other place that you know. Unfortunately however, your favorite shop closes three years after its inception, and you are heartbroken. How can the best ice cream shop shut down? They made way better ice cream than all of the other guys! Judith Bennett, the author of Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England, can explain how this phenomenon occurs through the start of beer brewing in the 14th – 15th century in England. The introduction and commercial expansion of beer brewing allowed for more efficient trade and sale of their products, which also was beneficial to its consumers. However, this terribly hurt the many small market of ale-brewers because they did not have the opportunities of capital-investment that beer-brewers had. Thus, less people were able to succeed in this particular industry, causing a polarization of social classes. This large commercialization of beer brewing found in England represented the capitalistic advantages that large corporate businesses have over smaller business that sell the same good. The commercial expansion of beer brewing was beneficial because it brought about success for its suppliers. Initially, brewing in England in the 1300s was a small scale, local industry. This brewing was mostly of ale. However, once brewing beer began, this industry became larger and more commercial, which led to the withering away of low scale ale brewing. This industry became more expansionary than ale brewing because of the use