Try to imagine watching a baseball game on a sticky summer afternoon without a cold beer. Heck, try making it through two innings without hearing, "Beer here!"
For more than a century, baseball and beer have been intertwined as American pastimes. In the late 19th century, the St. Louis Browns' Sportsman's Park featured a beer garden in the outfield. But beer and baseball go deeper than refreshment: There was often a strong tie to a team's local brewery. When Baltimore Orioles fans heard play-by-play announcer Chuck Thompson exclaim, "Ain't the beer cold!" after a home run or rally, they knew it was time to crack open a National Bohemian. (Jerold Hoffberger was an owner of the team as well as the owner of the National Brewing.)
Rhode Island's Narragansett sponsored the Red Sox during World War II, and the relationship lasted through 1975; during that time, Narragansett estimates it sold 6 million beers at Fenway Park. Anheuser-Busch's ties to the St. Louis Cardinals, including team ownership from 1953 to 1996 and the current naming rights to Busch Stadium through at least 2025, remain the gold standard when talking about the relationship between a brewery and a team.
But as the U.S. beer market began to contract, with fewer than 100 breweries across the country by the late '70s, the big brands took over the sport. Budweiser became the official beer sponsor of Major League Baseball in 1980, a position it will retain through at least 2018, while Miller Lite began showing ads featuring Bob Uecker, Billy Martin and George Steinbrenner.
Today, as craft beer sales rise and domestic macrobrews lose market share, some ballparks offer in-house bars branded with the names of local craft beers: Anchor Plaza and Taproom at AT&T Park in San Francisco, the Great Lakes Brewing bar at Cleveland's Progressive Field or the Flying Dog Grill at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. But more often than not, beer-loving fans face an illusion of choice, as Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors are the official beer sponsors of most teams. (Seattle's Safeco Field, where stands offer sour beers, cask ales and dozens of craft choices, is a notable exception.)
But there's some good news: The Kansas City Royals have named Boulevard Brewing their official craft beer partner. According to Major League Baseball, it's the first time a team has had an official craft beer.
"It's really a relationship that has come into its own," says Toby Cook, the Royals' vice president of publicity. Boulevard beer has been served at Kauffman Stadium since the mid-1990s, well before the Kansas City brewery grew into one of the largest craft breweries in the country.
The Royals' longstanding partnership with Anheuser-Busch expired this year. "We knew when it was time to make a transition, if it was going to be a transition, we'd like to have Boulevard involved in a bigger and better way," Cook says. (Boulevard isn't the only beer at Kauffman Stadium: MillerCoors is a team sponsor, selling its products at most bars, and Miller Lite is the team's official beer.)
In theory, the Boulevard-Royals deal could crack open the doors for every major league team to have a craft beer sponsor. "We've gotten some calls asking, 'Hey, how did this craft beer thing come about?' " Cook says. "We wouldn't be surprised if we see other teams doing something similar."
It would be nice. But.
Baseball stadiums have plenty of conflicts where beer is concerned. It would be hard to see the Milwaukee Brewers pushing New Glarus' Spotted Cow outside their new Local Brews bar (which also sells MillerCoors and Leinenkugel products), or the Colorado Rockies having an official craft beer at Coors Field, where Coors operates the Sandlot Brewery brewpub.
Also, this kind of sponsorship isn't free. Boulevard produces around 200,000 barrels per year, large by craft brewing standards but a fraction of what Budweiser produces. Boulevard is also owned by Belgian brewery Duvel Moortgat, which owns Ommegang and Firestone Walker. A major league sponsorship deal might make sense for another super-regional brewer, but it's out of the budget of all but a few craft brewers.
The Boulevard-Royals tie-up is definitely a win for Royals fans and a sign of craft beer's continued coolness. Others who love baseball and craft beer will be looking toward Kansas City with envy. To find something similar, they'll have to head to a minor-league park - perhaps to watch the San Francisco Giants' AA farm team, the Richmond Flying Squirrels, whose official beer, Chin Music Amber Lager, is brewed by the nearby Center of the Universe Brewing, or the short-season Hillsboro Hops, whose mascot, Barley, an anthropomorphized hop cone, appears on bottles from BridgePort Brewing, Oregon's oldest craft brewery.