The return of brewing to Casper and the decline of the large brewers

Recently I ran a long post on Wyoming's economy, that post being this one:   Lex Anteinternet: The Wyoming Economy. Looking at it in a different...: 

One of the things I noted in that is the return of local breweries to Wyoming, although I noted that the only one in Casper is the one at The Wonder Bar.

What I stated was:

It's not only hard alcohol that's making inroads into Wyoming and processing the state's agricultural produce. Beer has made an amazing\ return in these regards.

Snake River Brewery in Jackson Wyoming.

I've commented on this before, but here too the trend has really developed.  And to an amazing extent.  There are now breweries in quite a few Wyoming towns putting out a really high quality product.  This industry has gone from one which, a few years ago, would have required a person to hunt for a Wyoming beer (and a few years before that there were none) to one in which a person could easily buy beer on any occasional and always find a high quality Wyoming beer of any type.  

It's really amazing.  

Indeed, Wyoming beer is even canned now.  That may not seem so amazing, but a brewery has to put out quite a bit of beer before they begin canning it.  But that's now going on.  Indeed, beer is the Distributist Economic champion of Wyoming.

This revival, it should be noted, represents a return of an industry that once was all over and very local.  Casper, which recently saw local beer return at The Wonder Bar, an bar that dates back forever in Casper's history, once had a regional brewer in the form of Hillcrest Brewery.  

Bottles from Hillcrest Lager Beer, a beer that was once brewed locally but is no more. Casper doesn't bottle any beer anymore, but it does brew it once again.

Well, what I noted in the caption above, will no longer be true fairly soon.  A brewery is about to get up in running in Casper, that being Skull Tree Brewing.  I don't know much about it, but it's another example of how this ancient business that was once very local, is once again.

Indeed, it's worth noting that one of the largest brewers in the United States, Budweiser, is Belgian owned, even though its going to change the name of its signature beer, oddly, to "America" this summer.  Budweiser's share of the American beer market is 7.6%, at least as of few years ago.  That's not really very much.  The American brewer with the largest share of the market is D. G. Yuengling & Son, which is also the country's oldest brewer.  It has less than 2% of the market.  Local breweries have cut into much of the market here, and there presence is welcome as they put out a good product and provide good local jobs.