This article appeared in the Syracuse New Times, February 25, 1987. The brand information is dated, but the larger issues are relevant today.

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When a cold beer slides your way, do you think of your old drinking buddies or Louis Pasteur? Sorry, those are the only two choices. And you can’t drink the beer until we sort this out.

It’s important, because brewers are at war, and draft beer is the next battleground. Your mindset is vital intelligence. The next victory will be won in your heart or in your head. Or maybe even your mouth, although that’s a longshot.

Here’s your mission briefing: Sales in the brewing industry are flat. Higher drinking ages, more pressure on DWI enforcement and increasing health-consciousness are combining to decrease the demand for beer.

To increase sales, individual brewers need to introduce new products and win customers from their competitors. “Lite” beer was a masterstroke, appealing to aging drinkers and creating a new category for Miller Brewing.

But it was marketing and not the product that made it happen. Light beers, including Meister Brau “Lite,” the product of a small Chicago brewery, went nowhere when marketed as diet beers for men and women. But when the Meister Brau brewery went out of business, Miller bought their brands and trademarks and set the stage for magic. The new Miller Lite, a “less filling” beer for the mature sports guy, became second only to Budweiser as the largest selling beer brand in the world.

One battle, however, does not win the war. Now Miller needs another victory, and the company hopes draft beer in bottles and cans is it.

So when you see that cold draft beer coming at you, what’s on your mind? If it’s old friends and good times, then brewers will go for your heartstrings. Remember the time you and the guys dropped the piano and got all sweaty? Or the time you tipped over the hay wagon and got all sweaty? Miller does. A big keg of beer made everything okay that day (maybe you even fell asleep in its arms) and now you can find that same comfort in easier-to-handle bottles and cans.

If, however, you are more of a malt intellectual, one who feels pasteurization is fine for milk but heresy in the brewhouse, brewers will wax historical. They will remind you that before Louis Pasteur, all beer was draft. Attempts to bottle beer for shipping failed because of yeast cells left over from fermentation, and bacteria introduced into beer after fermentation.

Pasteur solved the problem by killing the microorganisms with heat — first bottling the beer and then immersing the bottles in hot water. But that created another problem: The heat altered the beer’s flavor.

This was overlooked at the time because pasteurized beer could now be shipped and stored for extended periods. Anheuser-Busch began bottling and pasteurizing in 1873 and other “shipping” brewers quickly followed. The process made the modern mega-brewers possible, with packaged beer that would travel and taste the same from coast to coast. Draft loyalists had to hoof it to the nearest tavern.

Today, the differences between draft and pasteurized beer remain the same. Draft beer, well cared for, has a fresher, truer, more complex flavor. But there is no more or less alcohol, or carbonation, or body. People who believe they can drink more or less of it than bottled beer are self-hypnotists.

The step to non-pasteurized beer in bottles was taken in 1959 at the Adolph Coors Company of Golden, Colorado. Coors discontinued pasteurization to save energy (an entire heating and cooling cycle) and deliver more flavor. Removing the microorganisms from the beer with filtration, instead of killing them with heat, made it possible. Coors filters both the beer itself and the air in the filter and filling rooms. Filling equipment is shut down frequently for chemical and steam sanitation. While Coors has never marketed its bottled and canned beers as draft beers, it’s a claim the brewery could make.

In the 1960’s, many other American brewers — Hamm’s, Schlitz and Piels among them –tried filtration and marketed draft beers in bottles and cans, but it was expensive, time-consuming and exacting, and not worth the sales results.

Another draft choice came from the F.X. Matt Brewing Company of Utica, New York. In 1977, Matt’s pioneered the Beerball, in effect making a beer keg smaller and lighter with PET plastic. The Beerball relied on constant refrigeration, instead of pasteurization or filtration, to keep the beer fresh. It held 5.17 gallons of draft beer — 55 12-ounce servings — and was easily carried, iced and tapped.

In Japan, brewers improved on the filtration process with ceramic filters. According to Sapporo Breweries Ltd., the Japanese filters are more reliable, durable and more easily sterilized than American-type filters made of cloth, paper or membranes.

Draft beer and innovative packaging have combined to create sales gains for all Japanese brewers. Munekazu Takenishi, president of Sapporo U.S.A., notes Sapporo has been the top-selling Japanese beer in American since 1985, which he attributes to the popularity of Sapporo Draft.

More importantly, in 1979 Sapporo contracted with Miller Brewing to supply the American company with its draft beer technology. Sapporo’s ceramic filtration and aseptic filling systems were installed in Miller breweries in Eden, North Carolina, and Irwindale, California, in 1984 and 1985 respectively.

Miller test marketed Plank Road Genuine Draft in fall 1984 and began testing Miller Genuine Draft in August 1985. The latter rolled out nationally in bottles in May 1986 and in cans two months later. Fully aware of the success of Miller Lite and of the Japanese draft beers, Miller executives hope Genuine Draft is the answer to their prayers.

If draft beer does boom, other American breweries might be tempted to introduce draft beer in cans and bottles. But all breweries built in the U.S. since the Sixties have been built for pasteurization, and major brewers currently have more capacity than demand. It is unlikely, therefore, that brewers would spend more money to rebuild older facilities or build new breweries on the draft model.

On the other hand, it is difficult to imagine Anheuser-Busch sitting on its hands if Miller Genuine Draft is successful. After Miller Lite’s success, Anheuser-Busch responded with Natural Light and Bud Light. It introduced L.A. in hopes of cornering the new reduced-alcohol category. And since 1984, Anheuser-Busch has had a relationship with Suntory, which brews Budweiser under license in Japan. In fact, unless Suntory has installed pasteurization specifically for Budweiser, a Bud Draft already exists. Surely America’s No. 1 brewer could buy draft beer technology from Suntory as easily as Miller, America’s No. 2 brewer, did from Sapporo.

What remains is for brewers to decide what approach will sell draft beer — not just the six-pack, but the vision. Should they go for the heart, a la Miller? Or should they emphasize superior technology and freshness, as do the Japanese? They will spend millions to find out and follow through. But the battle will be won or lost with you, the beer drinkers.

So what will it be? Are you a beer-drinking kinda guy? Or a connoisseur with contempt for Pasteur? Or are you that rare commodity among beer drinkers — someone who will try everything and choose a regular beer based on taste.