That's certainly interesting, but you know how news reports come up in your area of expertise and they are almost <i>always wrong</i>? It might be because the reporter is trained as a reporter and is just passing on whatever they hear. They have a large blindspot of 'unknown unknowns' (see Malcom Gladwell's "Igon Values"). The same thing happens when a cartographer strays away from geographic data.<p>Looking at the beer map at the bottom of the article, some of the claims are just silly. All of the hops in the USA are grown in four small regions in the northeast? Piffle. Grains are certainly not boiled to release the sugars either. You also get the impression that there are two yeast producers in the country (I'm not sure what the criteria is for being 'major').