The Craft Beer Boom Has Gone Flat

Usually, but most definitely not always.

 

Gotcha, what I was saying is I define craft as being well made.

 

Indeed, I counted 34 styles done at the pub.

 

I know what they mean. But I'm just not gonna bite.

 

Apparently, it was MUCH more like a craft pale ale until it hit the focus groups. This coming from a fellow that I peripherally know who worked at AB at the time.

 

I know this is a little different but still applies to those in the thread saying brewery sales make up a larger portion of sales for upstarts than what they had originally thought their business model would be.

A local craft distiller thought the bottle sales through distro would be where they made money and the tasting room would just get people to try the product. Turns out the tasting room is where they are thriving (no food sales) and the distro is very slow to grow. It is basically the exact opposite of what they thought.

I know the saturation point for beer and spirits is not close, but parallels can be made on the breweries that are seeing the heavy local influence versus what they probably thought when they set up their original business model.

 

There are a handful of craft distilleries here in Pittsburgh and I would assume the same without having actual numbers in front of me. Plus I've seen how much they're asking for their products in the liquor stores and its definitely in the "super premium" category. And not worth the amount that those stores are charging, IMO. Purchasing it is a bit different after you've had a few cocktails and it's right in front of you AND being, maybe not so, subtlely pushed on you.

 

Craft in general means made in a more traditional, more hands on, less industrial way. Small batch, artisinal, etc. Which never meant well made, per se, but did mean avoiding certain issues many associate with large scale standardized industrial production. Now that is problematic for beer, whose production is never literally hands on in the same way. Instead it has come to be used for a community of breweries which mostly started small since 1970. As a few of those become relatively large, as several are purchased by the largest industrial brewers, and as the sheer number of tiny breweries reached the point that we can't really see them all as a community, even the newer usage is more challenged (though IMO it remain s useful).

Local is obviously about place. Where something is made, where it's ingredients come from, and where the owners live. In the case of, say, Virginia grown sweetcorn, it's clearly local in Virginia (The exact definition of local in miles is debatable, and should probably vary by product). In the case of beer, there are 4 issues,IMO. Where is it brewed, is the owner part of the local community, where are the hops from, and where us the malt from. I am seeing more beers that use malt and or hops at least from the same state the beer is made in, which is a Very interesting phenomenon to me.

 

What I like most about the BA=Beer Advocate is that its just that - a bunch of people that like beer and don't need the phony definitions, pomp and circumstance to pad our egos and make us feel better. We don't all agree with one another, but we're also not gonna force our will on one another either.

 

However I believe the local food movement antedates the word locavore. Indeed I have read that Fritz Maytag was influenced by the SF local food community when he transformed Anchor.

 

Good luck to them. Though Blue Moon has a head start, and lots of market advantages.

 

The Brewers Association is made up if thousands of breweries, 8ncludin some whose owners played key roles in founding or advancing the craft beer movement. I don't think they do it to pad their egos, and I respect what they do.

 

The hatred for the Brewer's Association runs hard with many of the most prolific posters here. ☺ Whom I assume are hard core beer geeks.

 

I don't think many people hate the BA, although I'm sure some do. I think most people just see them as ineffective.

As to ABI. Sure lots of people hate them, but only time will tell if the propaganda that they've swallowed in order to develop that hate is accurate.

 

I see much more concern here that the BA is too effective, not that it is ineffective.

 

How so?

 

I got a nice giggle there myself.

 

I apologize for the delay, I was on vacation. I e-mailed Bart and he has responded. I asked his permission to post in this thread, and linked to this thread.

My questions:

1) For this quotation, "Mid-year figures from the Brewers Association, the trade group for independent brewers, shows that American craft beer production volumes increased 5% in the first half of 2017.

That's slightly less than 2016's mid-year increase of 8% and notably lower than the 16% mid-year production increase of 2015."

Do these numbers include just IRI/Nielson data, or do they include on-premise sales as well? I would think with the large number of local breweries today, IRI data alone for example, would not tell the whole story.

2) Do you think the number of breweries closing going from 75 in 2014 to 78 in 2015 to 97 last year is concerning? Especially considering the number of total breweries jumped from 3780 in 2014 to 4548 in 2015 to 5301 in 2016. The percentage of the total closing has remained the same.

Bart's answers:

They do include on-premise as well (IRI only has craft up 3-4% in off premise right now), but it’s harder to track those numbers in our mid-year, which has a smaller sample size. We’ll get a more in depth view in our annual survey.


On #2 – Although we’re concerned anytime a brewery closes (it’s our job to help them stay open!) in a systemic sense: no. That rate is incredibly low, either in historical terms or when compared to other small businesses. I’ve been pretty consistent in predicting that the rate and number of closures will rise and that when it does, it isn’t a bubble bursting, but more of a return to long-term averages as demand growth slows. The last five years (where almost no one closed in % terms) have been the unique ones.

He also had this to add to the second question:

On the closing question – feel free to link to this post, which looked at the issue of closings a few years back. The data is a bit old, but I think the general sentiment holds:

https://www.brewersassociation.org/insights/closings-signal-competition-not-problems/


A special thank you to Bart Watson for taking the time to respond to my questions, and to allow his answers to be posted here on Beer Advocate.

 

I am not going to reiterate the things that people complain about BA doing, when I either approve of those things, or don't think BA is doing them.

 

Thank you for taking the time to pose those questions and report back on the answers. Number two is the one I find most helpful in understanding a couple of things.