Sure, maybe there were rare situations where this happened but the truth is that before prohibition there were more breweries than we currently have even today[

Sure, maybe there were rare situations where this happened but the truth is that before prohibition there were more breweries than we currently have even today[1]. These breweries were in larger towns and they cooperated with farmers in a tightly nit ecosystem: grain from farmers -> make beer -> spent grain back to farmers to feed cattle I fail to believe that "competition" was a problem because the infrastructure required to distribute beer far enough to kill the competition did not exist. Yes, perhaps the brewery and bar were owned by the same person and they didn't allow the competition's beer, but there were no laws stopping the other brewery from opening their own bar. And the fact is that today every brewpub I've ever been to has guest taps and beer from other breweries. I've never been somewhere that refuses to sell anything but their own. The real problem today is that thanks to the three-tier system being completely controlled by MillerCoors/InBev it is VERY difficult to get your new product into bars and stores. The documentary Beer Wars[2] covers this very well -- better than I could in this posting. tl;dr three-tier may have served a purpose 75 years ago, but it has been holding back competition and hurting consumers for at least 50 years. (At one point large towns also had their own local mayonnaise, too!) [1] https://www.brewersassociation.org/statistics/number-of-breweries/ https://www.brewersassociation.org/statistics/number-of-brew... [2] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1326194/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1326194/