Where The Craft Beer Biz Is Today

The craft beer biz is changing at an accelerating pace, for both the industry and the fans who support it. And here’s where it’s at today…

Craft Beer Is Now Mainstream

Remember when you had to explain what craft beer was? Those days are over. Craft beer is no longer like the world’s hottest band selling out clubs…Craft beer is arena rock today.

That’s not any one’s fault…Nothing peaks forever…And craft beer, although still immensely popular, has entered what Brewers Association Chief Economist Bart Watson politely refers to as “a more mature market.” Major beer events aren’t selling out like they used to either and some of those staples won’t return in 2020.

Which leads us to this reality…

Craft Beer’s Years Of Double Digit Growth Are Over

We’ve often written “that anything that can’t go on forever…won’t.” And after years of double digit growth craft beer’s momentum, although still growing, has undeniably slowed.

With more breweries online in America than ever before we don’t expect to see craft beer momentum growing, if anything, in 2019. It’s a perfect storm of craft beer saturation (we’ll say it!) and younger consumers migrating to different beverages and other highs…

Breweries Are Now The Brand, Not Their Core Beers

There was a time when breweries where built around a more traditional model…Offer a limited number of core beers punctuated by a schedule of seasonals with an occasional limited release thrown in to keep things sexy…

Kate Bernot recently took to The Takeout to ask “is beer loyalty dead?’ We think that answer is kinda obvious…It’s long gone.

Beer brand loyalty is an almost forgotten concept among today’s consumers. And their promiscuous pursuit of the “new next big thing” is already spelling trouble for the nation’s leading craft brewers, those with large distribution networks that are largely dependent on core beer offerings than their smaller and more agile competitors.

Fan loyalty is more aligned with breweries than it is with particular beers in 2019…Consumers who still might be quick to buy anything new from Stone Brewing, aren’t tapping into old dependables such as Arrogant Bastard like they once did.

The Smaller The Brewery, The Better In 2019

It used to be that the goal of new craft brewers was to scale up as soon as possible. To broaden their distribution statewide and grow into other territories. Size spoke to popularity and success…But in 2019 it’s a growing liability.

Today small local breweries with taprooms and the ability to sell directly to their fans are undermining the long established model of larger destitution networks that successful brewers once aspired to, and delivering greater profits and fresher beer at the same time.