Let's expand upon this:
No, we'll likely never return to the time when three huge brewers dominate the entire beer marketplace. However, as the big "craft" players from the West Coast continue to establish production facilities on the Eastern Seaboard (Sierra, Oskar Blues, New Belgium and now Stone), aren't we looking at a scenario wherein retail shelf space comes to be their province in much the same way?
Schumacher offers an interesting comparison, one that points to another level of the brewery proliferation discussion.
How do 2,000 wineries in California survive?
Knowing quite little about it, I'd guess that their business models radically differ. Gallo has wine in every supermarket nationwide. Conversely, a small mom 'n' pop vintner ships a few hundred cases a year of something not at all plonk, and achieves his or her goals. California wineries predate "craft" breweries. Legal regimes vary. They've had time to dope it out, evolve and rationalize.
If every community is to play host to its own brewery, and all of them thrive, my guess is that the avoidance of a bubble bursting depends on economies of scale, and accompanying business plans. What worries me are all the new brewers who posit growth (and assume debt in accordance) according to outside distribution. It simply cannot be the case in the way this market currently works. I weary of collective 13% growth blurbs unaccompanied by a breakdown of production size. How much of that percentage is Sierra, and how much the brewpub in Anywheretown?
To be more succinct, it is the case now, and will be so increasingly in the future, that the interests and strategies of a 300-bbl pub brewer and a 30,000-bbl production brewer differ. NABC and Sam Adams are not alike. We're very different. We may both be "craft" in some nebulous way, but the differences are becoming wider, not narrower.
The practical consequences? I'll save those for another day.
The Beer Curmudgeon: LOCAL HERO, by Harry Schuhmacher (All About Beer Magazine)
... One of the most commonly asked questions within the beer industry today is: How many new breweries can the market support? Are we becoming saturated with too many breweries opening up? The answer is: not yet, not even close. There are over 2,000 wineries in California alone. If this local thing keeps going, every community will play host to its own brewery, and that’s not such a bad thing.
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