From the Garage to the Growler – American Craft Beer’s Evolution at Retail

Craft beer as we know it today has been an evolution. Back in the day, brewing was just a hobby – friends enjoying themselves and experimenting with age-old traditions. But what began in places like the garages of Chico, caught fire in a way that no one saw coming and a great new American tradition was born.

Many of those early brewers started selling their beer to friends to cover their expenses and little below-the-radar businesses were born – just guys brewing a new kind of beer before the terms craft beer had even been coined. As the popularity of some of these small enterprises grew, start-ups like Ken Grossman’s Sierra Nevada entered the marketplace for real….and the rest is part of craft beer’s ever-evolving history.

There’s a similar evolution happening today at retail. Twenty years ago, you’d be hard pressed to find much that you could really call craft, when you went shopping for beer. Sam Adams, Anchor Steam, and Sierra Nevada gradually took hold, but it was years, before seasonal releases from even those brewers became more commonplace. Over the last decade, craft beer offerings have become the norm at nationwide retail and grocery chains like Whole Foods, whose craft beer inventory is now as extensive and as vibrant as their wines!

Now we’re experiencing craft beer’s next evolution – off-premise retailers selling draft craft beer. Changing laws played a part. Many states throughout the country have been re-writing archaic laws and now allow brewery and brewpub visitors to purchase and take home beer directly from the brewer. This, in turn, has led to the mainstreaming of the growler. In the last five years, the growler has evolved from what was once a specialty product into what is now one of the primary ways that craft beer is distributed today. We’ve written about the craft beer kiosks showing up all over America and of the growing number of craft beer stores dedicated to growlers only sales. Well it’s not stopping there.

National grocery chains are now responding to consumers demanding fresher beers from smaller brewers and it’s benefiting everybody. Small brewers that don’t have the capacity to bottle but make quality products and have a regional followings are now being sold as growler pours at chains like Whole Foods. These draft only sales are an increasing part of craft beer’s evolving retail picture.

We at American Craft Beer think that draft beer being sold at retail will be one of the industry’s biggest trends going forward – and that this is but the beginning of what will eventually become a HUGE component of retail craft beer sales in the future. It mirrors the serious craft beer lovers ever increasing demands for newer and fresher beer and affords more options for smaller craft brewers who can now expose their beers to a wider audience even if they don’t have the capacity to bottle.

Draft craft beer being sold at retail is a marriage made in heaven. It’s a serious and exciting trend and we are all about it!