Wayne Elder and beer-drinkers like him are why craft brewing has exploded into a multibillion-dollar business and led to the launch of about 40 breweries throughout the Inland area.

Elder, 63, had always been a consumer of mass-market beers like Coors. But a few years ago, the Riverside man had his first taste of Chimay, a much-praised beer brewed for more than 150 years by Belgian monks. He was stunned by its complexity.

“It was amazing,” Elder recalled. “It was just all the flavors. Coors was always one-dimensional. With Chimay, almost every sip you could pick up another flavor, another texture. It’s a lot like good wine.”

Since then, Elder has discovered there’s plenty of full-flavored beer made a lot closer to home than Belgium – at, for instance, Riverside’s Packinghouse Brewing Co., where on a recent night Elder was enjoying a Riley’s Irish Red ale only a few dozen feet from where it had been brewed.

The number of craft breweries nationwide has more than doubled in the past decade, from 1,430 in 2003 to 3,040 in June 2014, according to the Boulder, Colo.-based Brewers Association, a national craft-brewers group. The organization counts 413 in California. More than 1,900 breweries were in the planning stages in June 2014, said Bart Watson, staff economist for the Brewers Association.

Almost all of the breweries in Riverside and San Bernardino counties have opened in the past few years.

BEER ATTRACTION

Even if you’ve never been to a craft brewery, you probably have spotted craft beers in your local supermarket or liquor store.

Craft beers now represent more than 10 percent of the U.S. beer market, up from about 3 percent in 2003, Watson said. The California Craft Brewers Association estimates that the market share in this state is 12 percent to 14 percent.

Craft beers traditionally have done best among young adults with higher-than-average incomes and educational levels, but their appeal is widening, Watson said.

In the Inland Empire, one of the biggest concentrations of breweries is in the Temecula-Murrieta area, which has become among the leading Southern California centers for craft beer.

Nic Bortolin, head brewer at Wiens Brewing in Temecula, said having five breweries within two blocks of each other increases overall sales.

“I think it’s fantastic,” Bortolin said. “For one, it really drives foot traffic. People charter limousines and buses.”

The breweries are neighborly, borrowing grains from each other like homeowners knocking on a neighbor’s door for a cup of sugar.

“We don’t view each other as competitors,” Bortolin said. “It’s the big breweries with 90 percent of the market that we view as competitors.”

In May, Justen Foust opened Electric Brewing Co. 2 miles north of Wiens. He believes multiple breweries in an area creates a bigger market of customers who have a taste for craft beer.

“If there’s only one brewer, it takes awhile for people to learn about craft beers,” Foust said. “With the other breweries out here, more and more people are finding out there’s more to beer than Bud Light.”

Those customers often will want to sample beers at nearby breweries, he said.

There’s still a lot of room for growth in breweries, especially small, local ones, said Tom McCormick, executive director of the California Craft Brewers Association.

“With that particular business model, they don’t need to be a Sierra Nevada to survive and thrive,” McCormick said, referring to California’s largest craft brewery. “You could have a lot of local breweries or brewpubs serving a local community. It’s like restaurants. You can have a lot of restaurants in a single community.”

BEER NATION

There always have been craft breweries in California and across the country, even if they weren’t called that. There were more than 4,100 breweries nationwide in the 1870s, according to the Brewers Association.

But by the 1960s, effective corporate marketing campaigns meant that almost all beer sold in the United States was a light lager brewed by a dwindling number of large companies, McCormick said.

The beginning of the beer renaissance, insiders agree, was in 1965, when Fritz Maytag bought San Francisco’s Anchor Brewing – maker of Anchor Steam – after he discovered the company founded in 1896 was on the verge of going out of business.

The craft-beer industry grew slowly until the early 1990s, when sales of craft brews spiked before slowing again. The past few years have seen another burst of rapid growth.

The increasing popularity of craft beer dovetails with the movement toward eating artisan food and patronizing local businesses, McCormick said. Among many beer drinkers, there’s also a focus on quality rather than quantity, partly as a result of stronger penalties for driving under the influence, he said.

Drinking fewer beers is a necessity for craft-beer aficionados on a tight budget. Craft beers are almost always more expensive than mass-market domestic brands, often by 50 percent or more. A typical six-pack costs about $9 or $10.

Chris Gutierrez, 27, of Riverside said he prefers the hoppiness and full flavor of many craft beers. But he sometimes still drinks mass-market beers, he said, because they’re cheaper and easier to find in stores when he goes on trips to places like the Colorado River.

“I drink the IPAs and creamy stouts for the flavor,” he said, referring to two of his favorite styles of craft beer. “With Bud Light and Coors Light, I’m drinking it to get a certain level of being buzzed.”

Sales of big corporate brands still dwarf those of craft beers. But sales of the biggest-selling beers have been declining, so mega-breweries are trying to take advantage of the craft-beer trend.

The corporate ownership of MillerCoors’ Blue Moon and Anheuser-Busch InBev’s Shock Top means they’re not considered craft beers by groups like the Brewers Association. But they advertise themselves as craft beers, eschewing references to their corporate parents, and their deep-pocketed backing means wide distribution.

EXPANDING

The largest Inland brewery is Redlands’ Hangar 24, which distributes its beers statewide and, since earlier this year, in Arizona and Nevada.

Ben Cook founded the company in 2008 after years of home-brewing and his graduation from the master brewers program at UC Davis.

“I loved the gratification of sharing my beer with my friends and knowing if they loved or hated it,” he said.

Sales have increased from about 1,100 barrels – a barrel is about 31 gallons – in 2008 to 35,000 in 2013. To meet demand, beer is now produced around the clock at Hangar 24’s brewery across the street from Redlands Municipal Airport. The company has nearly 200 employees.

Hangar 24 first sold its beer to restaurants, bars and independent stores. Chains like Stater Bros. and Albertsons took notice after customers began asking for it, Cook said.

It’s important to build up exposure before trying to land major chain-store accounts, he said.

“You have to prove yourself out in the field and build brand recognition, so people know who you are and will buy it,” Cook said. “If it doesn’t sell what is expected, they’ll drop it very quickly.”

A good beer isn’t necessarily going to sell, he said. It has to be marketed well. Breweries have gone out of business shortly after winning awards in major beer competitions, he said.

Hangar 24 retains strong Inland roots. Its best-known beer, Orange Wheat, is made with Redlands-grown oranges, and other beers also feature Inland produce, including dates, cherries, grapefruit, apricots and grapes.

GREAT EXPECTATONS

More typical of craft brewers is Riverside’s Packinghouse, which began brewing in 2010.

“We wanted to fill a void,” co-founder Tim Worthington said. “We wanted a better product and a local product.”

Packinghouse started out small in 2010, building slowly to put beers in 55 restaurants, bars and liquor stores in Riverside, San Bernardino, Orange and Los Angeles counties, Worthington said.

Each new account makes the next sale easier, because bar or store owners want to know where else the beer is offered before taking a chance on allotting limited tap or shelf space for it, Worthington said.

Reflecting its growth, Packinghouse in February doubled its production area from 1,400 to 2,800 square feet and tripled the size of its tasting room.

Packinghouse’s ultimate goal is to become a major craft brewery with a national presence, like Sierra Nevada or Lagunitas, Worthington said. But the company needs to take care to not expand the number of its accounts so quickly that it risks not being able to provide enough beer for its clients, he said.

As with other breweries, the Packinghouse tasting room is both a source of revenue and a marketing tool. Staff members are trained to describe each beer’s flavor and know each ingredient. Patrons can taste beers and order flights of 4-ounce samples of whatever is on tap, which is up to eight beers.

Through a door from the tasting room lies the brewing area. Big barrels filled with beer sit near sacks of German malts and a refrigerator with bags of hops, which look like rabbit-food pellets. Hops add bitterness to beer.

Eric Zwack, the head brewer at Packinghouse, said the endless potential combinations of malts, hops and other ingredients make each beer distinctive.

“The sky’s the limit with craft beer,” he said. “That’s why we do what we do, because the possibilities are infinite.”

Packinghouse is in an industrial park near Riverside Municipal Airport. Other breweries also set up shop in industrial or office parks, where rental space is cheaper than in major retail strips and zoning often allows breweries.

Kat Daddy Brewery is wedged among mechanics, auto-parts stores and a smog-check shop in Moreno Valley. Owner Marcus “Kat Daddy” Cole, 51, was stationed at March Air Reserve Base two blocks away when he opened the brewery in 2009.

Unlike Worthington, he doesn’t aspire to be the owner of the next Sierra Nevada. He likes being able to greet all the customers who come through the door and chat with them about his beer.

“This is my retirement,” he said. “I don’t want to kill myself doing it.”

The tasting rooms at nano-breweries such as Kat Daddy tend to be small and simple. Other breweries have a theme. The tasting room of Norco’s Sons of Liberty is designed like an 18th-century tavern. Craft in Lake Elsinore has a medieval feel.

The craft-beer craze has done more than spur the launch of new breweries. The expanding taste for full-flavored beer also has helped home-brewing-equipment businesses like MoreBeer! & MoreWine!, which has three California locations, including one in Riverside.

Rob Arbagey, manager of the Riverside store, said that in the first few years after he became manager in 2007, annual growth was 50 percent to 100 percent, a pace that slowed after competing stores opened in the Inland Empire.

Shelves at many supermarkets, liquor stores and convenience marts have been transformed by the craft-beer trend; beers that didn’t even exist two or three years ago share space with six-packs of Budweiser. Liquor stores such as Riverside’s La Bodega Wine and Spirits now carry a dizzying – and changing – array of beers.

Gerrards Market, an independent grocery store in Redlands, saw its craft-beer sales rise so quickly that just over a year ago, owner Tom Reingrover unveiled a 1,200-square-foot refrigerated “beer cave” that allowed the store to increase the varieties of beers it sold from 300 to 1,000.

A year ago, wine at Gerrards outsold beer 3-to-1. Now beer outsells wine 2-to-1. Reingrover said he’s thinking about expanding his craft-beer area even further.

“I’ve been in the business 40 years,” he said, “and this is the single most successful thing I’ve done.”

Contact the writer: 951-368-9462 or dolson@pe.com