The politics of growth.

We present two of our major annual feature reports on the beer business in this issue. "Beer Growth Brands beginning on page 30 is based on proprietary research published in Adams Beer Handbook 2003. It highlights in text and table the fastest growth brands in key categories. While in format it's a basic "what's hot, what's not" peek at the marketplace, you'll see clearly as you go through it the quantitative changes in the marketplace over the past five years.

The ebb and flow of popular brands and new products has not occurred in a vacuum and, about the numbers at least, there's little to dispute. Reading the entrails may be an art, but Beer Growth Brands is the bedrock for rational analysis.

Numbers, however, are nothing without context. Michael Sherer's "Beer Industry Report," which you will find on page 20, has to be one of the most definitive and revealing journalistic pieces on the U.S. beer industry in recent years. Sherer covers the relevant context comprehensively, beginning with the global influences of war and peace, bust and boom, and growth in emerging world markets. He reports on the dislocations and opportunities generated by the implacable forces of consolidation in the supplier and wholesaler tiers. He analyzes the foreseeable and the unforeseeable: the attraction of new flavor profiles, changing demographics, social policy, and trends in merchandising and advertising.

We hope that in putting these two special articles in front of you at the same time we have created a unique opportunity for you to understand how beer is sold in this country. And, we also hope, some nuggets of information that you can use to sell more beer, more profitably, with less underlying investment.

You should, at the very least, get an enlightening, if not entertaining look at the economic politics of a growing industry. As Beverage Dynamics Editor-in-Chief Richard Brandes comments in "Beer Growth Brands," brand equity remains tire cornerstone of the beer industry. That's as true for you, the retailer, as it is for the suppliers that Sherer quotes. In the end, no business strategy trumps consumer needs and wants. That's because, in the end, consumers don't buy beer, they buy brands.

So, you will have to decide for yourself if the key to selling more beer--or less beer more profitably--or even less beer and more of something else, lies in a local market strategy, a category management program, better packaging, or more or less dependence on your wholesalers. If you never had an out-of stock, would you sell more beer? Only you can answer.

That's not to say your suppliers are indifferent to your needs. Exactly the opposite, as our two stories relate in detail. For every perceived challenge you face, they are hard at work developing an appropriate program or, in some instances, a new product. The politics of growth are instructional, amusing and a benefit to all.