After a long day in the classroom, middle school teacher Melissa Repsch likes nothing more than to sit down to a fine dinner with beer — craft beer, that is.Like a growing number of Americans, she has developed a passion for full-flavored beers from small-volume, fiercely independent local breweries that are redefining how the United States takes its favorite tipple.“It’s something we enjoy,” said Repsch, 37, as she and husband Jake, 38, also a teacher, sampled some of the 149 different beers from 74 craft breweries at this year’s edition of Savor, the nation’s biggest beer-and-food event.“The more (varieties of craft beer) we try, the more it seems we’re pushing for something unique and rare,” she added.Beer is a $96 billion industry in the United States, dominated by three multinationals — Belgium’s Anheuser-Busch InBev, best known for perennial best-seller Budweiser, Britain’s SABMiller and Canada’s Molson Coors.But while overall beer sales dipped one percent in 2011, craft beer sales — which account for five percent of the entire market — surged 13 percent by volume and 15 percent by sales value.What’s more, the total number of breweries in the United States now exceeds 2,000 — more than at any time since the 19th century, let alone the prohibition years of the 1930s.
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