Airport beer monopolies leave travellers thirsty

Do national airports act as a model for monopolisation? Does a lack of variety exemplify a beer landscape that will inevitably result from continued heavy-handed domination by big beer tyranny?

Only a few years ago thirsty travellers searching for appealing beers were rewarded with choice. Yet so-called ‘improvements to passenger facilities’ eradicate every trace of flavour. In favour of omnipresent big beer.

And it is the artisanal, crafty local beer scenes that consequently suffer from being swept under the carpet, kept hidden from travellers who could support, promote and boost the market by discovering something new and fresh.

Instead travellers are offered a choice between homogeny and blandness. And the same limited options are available to travellers once in the air.

Whatever happened to today’s global trend of refined beer drinking? Whatever happened to national pride in home-grown skill and talent? Many national airports fail to cater for modern, discerning drinkers and, for their size and passenger numbers, will rank high in a “world’s worst airports for beer-lovers” list.

Progressive, liberal countries with pride in their global public image tend to honour both big industry and artisanal entrepreneurship by presenting both, side-by-side, as the face of a nation. Monopolisation is an Orwellian approach that sees a boot stamping on entrepreneurship — forever.

Denying one’s own country has a wonderful, vivid beer culture is a lack of national self-respect. Is it ignorance or deceit and denial to do so?

Dishonesty is promoting national beer culture as a single brand that everybody from every region already knows.

A lack of dignity is complacency in the attempted obliteration of national pride in a buoyant artisanal brewing industry.

National airports perhaps demonstrate a future that beer lovers fear: the peril of a totalitarian beer monopoly.