Craft beer in five years...

Many of them will claim they just had the timing wrong and that its coming soon... :-)

 

Cans. More cans. Lots of cans.

 

I see the big boys recognizing a pattern and making better variants of their "crafty" lineups.

Big boys acquiring more craft breweries like we saw with ABI/Goose Island

Mergers and acquisitions within the industry, with the number of players you currently have, it just makes sense.

Death to mediocre breweries charging $10+ for a bomber of their flagship beer

Me being optimistic, I am hoping to see less 'innovation' in brewing and a quest by U.S. breweries to try and perfect old world styles of beer and traditional recipes.

 

Even more ingenious collaboration concepts. More splinter companies from mega brewers, chasing the "crafty" crowd and badgering all of us with mindless advertising. Local good beer thriving.

 

Look at it kind of like farmer's markets. They are popping up in towns across the country. My local chain grocery stores still sell produce and other farmer's markets good. There will be a balance achieved and like all business the breweries that make a quality product and have good business acumen will be successful.

 

I think a lot more breweries will continue to open which will create more competition thus making brewers work harder on consistent, well made beer. Breweries won't be able to get away with poorly made beer and will likely shut their doors due to the fact that 5 other breweries nearby will be making better beer. I also believe consumers will start to understand what well made beer is and start to realize just because a brewer threw a bunch of stuff in the beer doesn't mean it's a good beer. Hopefully more breweries in the consumers own backyard will slow down the "Whale train" and consumers will realize that just because it's made in small quantities 6 states away doesn't mean they have to fight get a bottle and they can save some money and time by focusing on their immediate area to enjoy the beers they have in their own backyard. Just my two cents.

 

BMC-in-disguise is a snowball that has only just begun its decent down a very, very long hill.

 

More shelf space for craft in more places.
More competition for that shelf space.
More small crafters owned and distributed by "big beer."
More faux craft by "big beer."
A lot of the upstarts we have seen come on in the last two years close.
More emphasis on local offerings.

 

I think the macros will come out with a slew of different pale lager beer brands which are dry-hopped with American aroma hops. It makes more sense for them to try and compete with hoppy pale ales and IPAs with hoppy pale lager beers, rather than focusing on stouts our sours imo. The macros will want to walk the line between flavor and volume, they want their consumers to be able to consume large quantities in a sitting of the same beer, rather than put out a beer which people buy a single bottle of and don't spend an evening drinking on its own. Hoppy pale lager beers are refreshing and light whilst also being flavorsome, and this is something which the macros will focus on I think, it allows them to live up to the concept of "tastes great, less filling" (more taste than mainstream pale lager, less filling than higher abv, sweeter styles of beer).

In Sweden there's been competition between the two major macro brewers in coming out with dry-hopped lager beers using American aroma hops, combining their own lager brewing expertise with new influences from American craft brewing. This has yielded some very god results which are easy drinking yet flavorsome and hoppy (not IPA hoppy, but APA hoppy). There's also Grolsch which has introduced a new pale lager beer brewed with Cascade hops called Kornuit. I think this is the path which macro brewing will take in the next five years, combining their current brewing techniques with new influences which offers people the taste profiles that they are looking for.

 

Bud Light will redesign their bottle...

... it'll take the market by storm ...

... and the craft breweries will be done for.

 

There will be massive cries for government intervention and redistribution of whalez. Quality will plummet, corruption with rise. Civil war will ensue. Drones will strike civilian targets including breweries, beerfests, tastings,and releases. Dark days ahead.

 

Super Bowl LIII - brought to you by Goose Island.

 

So you're saying the traders will stop purchasing the bothersome beer that comes inside the waxed bottle with the cool cartoon label and instead focus on their true passion: collecting and trading Whale Cards?

 

As so many new breweries begin jockeying for a position in our glass. We're going to hit a distribution loggerhead, and a lot of beers people will have come to sort of expect aren't going to be there anymore. We're due for a market correction on that front and the breweries sticking too much on their plate are going to get hit, and hard. Natural progression, folks. Not all guns blazing when you still are learning to use a popgun. The New Glarus story is going to become very important, and it makes sense with craft beer when taken in accompaniment with the rest of the smaller circle and local movements. Take care of your own field first.
Stylistically. There'll still be beerdick beer, but slowly and surely. I think, and hope that as the brewpub / gastropub part of consumption and its smaller and more localized movements gets more attention. A wave of goes well with food drinkers should be coming on to the market. That's where I see things headed as we get out of the teenage loud rebellion years of I have skulls and unicorns on my big honker of a beer that will make you go smashy smashy two or three in and turns the room into a shitshow and on into the we basically just want the same boring life everyone else does.

 

One might as well. If there's one thing I don't understand then it's buying beer that isn't drunk. It just seems as though people buy beers because of the thrill of buying beer, and once they have bought the beer, the thrill diminishes, and so it's on to the next beer which is more thrilling, since they can't experience the same level of thrill from the beer they already have. That thrill has a time limit, it goes away, and when it's gone, you need another beer to get the same sense of thrill. I think the same type of process is responsible for hoarding, people buy a bunch of stuff because they think it gives them pleasure, yet once they have the stuff, the stuff gets old and boring and they need new stuff. The hunt and the catch becomes important, moreso than the actual product. That's how people can amass hundreds of bottles, the excitement wears off, and requires new targets.

 

Some consolidation/acquisitions, that will result in more craft breweries on the larger end of the scale, that have a fully national footprint. On the opposite end of the size-scale, I think we'll see more highly localized breweries. There will be a decrease in mid-size breweries - the mediocre ones will fold and only the best will survive. Agreed with others that the limited/special stuff will start to rise in price

No idea in terms of what will be the next trend in terms of style - hope it doesn't get too silly.

As a Brit living in the US, I'd like to see more respect for US beer from the Europeans, while at the same time I'd like to see less Americans talking about US beer being "the best" (looking at you cavedave - sheesh going to make "better" lambics than the Belgians huh?! hah). It's possible to appreciate both innovation and tradition. All countries bring something to the table, all are equally-deserving of respect and all can have a positive impact on the others.

 

4.5 million varieties of barrel aged beers

 

If I could predict the future, I wouldn't be wasting my time on this [or any other] website.

 

I dream of the day when a dry, dusty piece of "bubble gum" accompanies my beer.

 

Quantity will continue to outpace quality.