View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by OAR@UM Asia Pacific Viewpoint, Vol. 51, No. 1, April 2010 ISSN 1360-7456, pp61–72 Islands and beers: Toasting a discriminatory approach to small island manufacturingapv_1414 61..72 Godfrey Baldacchino Island Studies Program, University of Prince Edward Island, 550 University Avenue, Charlottetown, PE, Canada C1A 4P3. Email:
[email protected] Abstract: This paper explores the relationship between beers and island development, using a global sweep but with a special reference to the insular Pacific. It adopts a discriminatory approach, touching upon the role and impact that niche and bouquet beer manufacturing can have on the socioeconomic development of small islands. It departs from a personal observation: many small island jurisdictions have their own brewery. Indeed, the brewery could also be the island territory’s largest indigenous manufacturing concern. While small islands are associated with low manufactur- ing capacity and diseconomies of scale, nevertheless ‘a local brewery’ comes across, in many cases, as a profitable and glaring exception that speaks to the attractions and virtues of locality branding. Keywords: beer, branding, brewery, islands, manufacturing Introduction without invitation; during which time the guests expect to be fed, to drink beer and be bought Kabutaulaka (2005: 88–89) provides anecdotes new things. Social and cultural practices aside, of men from Malaita and Guadalcanal, proudly local beers however also perform a vital, and showing off that they can afford to buy and drink perhaps under-appreciated, economic function the Solomon Islands beer, Solbrew.The alcoholic to small island territories.