Beer sales, both craft and mass-market, are slowing and it seems like, increasingly, few counties are immune, even beer meccas like Belgium. We’ve that, “Craft Beer Filmmakers versus the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board” and more.
Belgian Brewers In Crisis Mode
Beer sales, both craft and mass-market, are slowing all over the world and increasingly it seems like few counties are immune, even beer meccas like Belgium, a region renowned for its unique brewing skills.
Beer sales in Belgium dropped by 5.8% in 2023. And Belgian beer exports which make up 70% of all the beer produced in Belgium were down a concerning 7.5%, according to industry association Belgian Brewers.
“Breweries are also beginning to fall, albeit slowly,” according to VinePair…
Mark Van Pee, who has been tracking brewery numbers for consumer group Zythos for the past decade,” explains that Belgian brewing’s modern peak came in 2022, when there were 430 physical breweries and 309 “beer companies,” which don’t own brewing equipment. Now there are 413 and 300 brewing companies.
“Thirty-six breweries closed last year; 31 more have followed in 2024. “They’re mostly very small breweries,” Van Pee added. “A lot of them are one-man bands.”
Words to Drink By
“No one understands and appreciates the American Dream of hard work leading to material rewards better than a non-American.” Anthony Bourdain – American celebrity chef, author, and travel documentarian
Craft Beer Filmmakers vs the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board
It started as a dream come true.
Filmmaker Nate Kresge began receiving grants through a little-known state program to promote Pennsylvania’s beer industry. The money went toward a documentary“ and a series that showcased Pennsylvania brewers and the local artists who designed the craft beer can art’
But or Kresge that dream grant turned into a nightmare when the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, which administers the program, balked at paying out the mone, and he was not alone.
This from the Altoona Mirror…
“Multiple grant awardees told Spotlight PA their biggest problem was the liquor control board’s strict, inflexible benchmarks for allocating money under the program. They also said that because awardees must front project money and then seek reimbursement, the program was difficult for smaller businesses to use, particularly if they have no guarantee of full repayment.”
Complaints about the program reached a crescendo last summer forcing Gov. Josh Shapiro to quietly sign a bill cutting the liquor control board completely out of the process and moving its administration to the Department of Agriculture who now almost exclusively run the grant program.
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