It’s a concern if this recent report is anything to go by:
In the last four weeks, he added, the largest four BA-defined craft suppliers — Yuengling, Boston Beer, Sierra Nevada, and New Belgium — were down a combined 4 percent. “I don’t think IRI has Yuengling in their craft, but the other three are 33.9 percent of IRI’s craft cases right now,” he wrote in an email. “Add in Blue Moon and Shock Top and you’re looking at 48 percent of IRI ‘craft,’ which is down 8 percent in the last four weeks. That’s going to pull hard on any number.” Indeed, volume sales of mainstream craft flagships like Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Boston Lager, and New Belgium Fat Tire were down 5.9 percent, 13.8 percent and 5 percent through May 15, respectively.
Not to come off as being all neg on craft beer, it’s good to note that cider is bottoming out, too. I was thinking about that while I was reading Bryan Roth’s bit about selling to Millennials, aka thems who everyone else used to call Gen Y. The Roth report warns that craft brewers fail to focus on this era’s set of young, fun, unburdened, disposing of disposable income cohort at their peril. Yet half way down the argument there is one of the scariest statements I have seen embedded in an info-thingy from the BA: half of craft beer purchases by Millennial males are brands the buyer never heard of before. Holy frig.
I am told the Cedar Waxwing is a bit of a rarity among bird. They lack a strong sense of territory. “Nomadic, moving about irregularly; both breeding and wintering areas may change from year to year, depending on food supplies.” Drifty drifters, they can take off in a flock heading in one direction and, if there is enough food on the path, keep on for miles. Then they shift aimlessly off onto another path, happy as long as there is something new to chew. Were they the cider drinkers? The buyers of big craft flagships? Are they now making 2016 the summer of hard soda?
If I am honest, I am one of them. Gen Y yoof is just Gen X yoof with more money. Hard to shake the drift habit. Other than a modest if constant Dewar’s habit, I hardly ever get only the same strong stuff on my weekly trip to the power house. I’ll buy anything in a pretty wrapper from any brewer with a reasonable reputation – except if it’s fruit flavoured, of course. No one needs that. Being an early Gen Xer, I have shared with my Gen Z teens a sense of disorder and unreliability. Both Ramones and tweed. The garden remains half planted. I root for whoever’s doing well in the NBA.
Does the wise business person chase that market or aim for something a little duller and more reliable? You know, soon Millennials won’t be the new market entrants. My kids will. Millennials? They’ll start having kids and paying the bills. Settling and settling down. Maybe by then they’ll need a flagship of their own. Something to remind them of when they were young. Or maybe sherry. Maybe the 2010s are the decade of fino sherries. Maybe.
[Original comments…]
Maximillian Heth – May 30, 2016 11:52 PM
https://brewsavant.club
Sure, the wise businessman may decide to go for something less exotic and “a little duller” to a wider range of folks, as you put it, but I think there will always be brewers who prefer to stick to their guns and brew beer that’s true to their roots and traditional influences. Craft beer has always been more of a locally oriented product at its core. That’s how it was before Prohibition and that’s how it came to be after Fritz Maytag tossed his hat into the ring when he bought 51% of Anchor Brewing back in 1965 and laid the groundwork that would kickstart the craft beer movement as we know it today.
Sure, something more niche and unique will garner a smaller piece of the market share pie, but then brewers who are business-savvy may simply choose to diversify and expand their selections to appeal to a broader set of flavor profiles and preferences.
RTR – May 31, 2016 1:13 AM
I agree, it is time for sherry to make a comeback. I am totally opposed to hard soda.
Craig – May 31, 2016 9:10 AM
http://www.drinkdrank1.com
That’s not how it was before Prohibition. Brewing, realistically, up until recently was about selling the most amount of beer possible to whomever would drink it—damn the connoisseur, the expert and snob. Local was irrelevant. If a brewery in Pittsburgh could sell beer in California, successfully, they would have. Brewers prior to 1990 made beer to be sold and drank. They made different kinds of beer because they wanted to sell as much beer as possible to as many people possible. All they needed to do was make something that tasted good and got their customers drunk.They were not expressing their creativity. They were not attempting to “innovate” through taste. Tire factories sell tires, and breweries sell beer. That’s it. Finito. End of argument. Do not attempt to saddle history with the tenants of “craft”.
Ed – May 31, 2016 9:23 AM
http://edsbeer.blogspot.com
I think you’ve been bored of craft beer for a long time now Alan!
Alan – May 31, 2016 9:32 AM
Is hard soda craft beer?
The Professor – May 31, 2016 12:06 PM
@Craig: Sorry, but the notion that there was no creativity in brewing (“craft” or otherwise) until after 1990 sounds like more like craft industry hype than fact. There was plenty of creative, well made and unique beer and ale to be had in the ’70s and ’80s (and actually, even before that if one knew where to look).
There are certainly a lot more brewers doing it nowadays…no argument there…but the flip side of that is that there are are also a lot more brewers simply not doing it very well.
Alan – May 31, 2016 1:42 PM
For me, before the micro era, much of the creativity was at the business end of things. Trains being used to compete at distance in the 1850s, mergers and acquisitions being mastered by EP Taylor from the 1930s to 1960s. Brewing creativity was likewise aimed at efficiency, too. Making more with less.
Gerry – May 31, 2016 7:03 PM
Alan, I think that the “hard sodas” of today would have been part of the range of “small beers” of the past: Hoxie, Peruvian Beer, Excelsior Ale, Copenhagen Porter. various rooty beverages and that sort of thing — at least in terms of flavour, if not of ABV (for most). All these things (and others) were pointed out as both “not beer” and “beer” in the nineteenth century depending upon who was using which definition of beer. I think that you’re right that most of the creativity in brewing in the 19th century was seen in business and process, rather than in nifty new beers. But, brewers did advertise new types of beer, although they were generally just new to their particular business. Post-prohibition, particularly in WW II, a lot creativity went into advertising, which is why brewing fared much better in that war than in WW I.
Alan – May 31, 2016 10:42 PM
California pop!
Craig – June 1, 2016 9:25 AM
http://drinkdrank1.com
Was I just accused of perpetuating craft beer hype? Ha!
@Professor, I love how you picked up on “before 1990”, as if the development of craft beer is the alpha and omega of brewing. Kinda splitting hairs between 1980 and 1990 when it comes to the 4000 year arc of beer isn’t it?
This is why I’m saying this, “craft” folk often co-opt history for their own benefits, without understanding the details—and the devil is in the details. There is no separation of “craft” in history. Craft is not the start of something, it’s simply an evolution, a blip on an otherwise long, extending path full of thousands of other blips.
Brewers before 1965 (is that better than 1990?) were not “early craft brewers”. They made beer to sell, not to express their creativity. Alan is correct—if they were creative, it was because they were innovative businessmen and industrialists with forethought.
Gerry excellent use of the phrase “rooty beverages”.
Maximillian Heth – July 28, 2016 11:08 AM
https://brewsavant.club
Which brewers are you talking about specifically, Craig? Yeah, commercial brewers made beer to be sold and drunk by the average joe while craft brewers typically sold locally or with limited distribution without worrying too much about growth and acquiring market share, but if you knew anything about craft beer history, you’d understand that was the whole point. Craft beer and craft breweries by definition are small, independent, and traditional.
End of argument? Do not attempt to saddle history with the tenants (that would be “tenets”, but nice try…) of “craft”? Hahaha! Yeah, okay. Try backing up your BS with some references next time and quit being such a pompous asshole. There are plenty of craft brewers out there who got into the game precisely because they love brewing awesome-tasting beer and not just because they wanted to get their customers “drunk”. Sure, before the 1990s, they didn’t really go out of their way to advertise and be well-known, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t exist nor that they weren’t passionate about making great beer.
Alan – July 28, 2016 12:18 PM
Oh, don’t be such a dork. “Hahaha! Yeah, okay. ” Really? What are you, twelve?
Nice eight week lag on the comeback, too.
Craig – July 28, 2016 4:42 PM
http://drinkdrank1.com
Al would you written a book with me had I not been able back my BS with references?
If you are selling your beer, you are a commercial brewery—craft of otherwise. Again, you’re separating craft’s history from the greater arc of American brewing. They are one and the same, not better or worse, just part of the history. Secondly, assuming that early craft brewers didn’t expect or want growth or the acquisition of markets, because they were content to stay small, independent and traditional, shows how much you don’t know about early craft beer history—expansion was always the name of the game. Just ask Jim Koch, or If you’d like to talk to Bill Newman about that I’d be happy to arrange a phone call. I can probably dig up some ads from the late 1980s, that those passionate early microbrewery “didn’t” run, too, because they were too busy trying to stay small. Thirdly, there is no real definition of a craft brewer, because if their were Sam Adams, Elysian, Ballast Point, Southern Tier and thirty or so other breweries would be out of luck with the Brewer’s Association because they’re big, and questionably independent.
Secondly, and more to my point, the reason folks get into the craft beer biz today is irrelevant, but stating that “Craft beer has always been more of a locally oriented product at its core. THAT’S HOW IT WAS BEFORE PROHIBITION…” is wrong. Pre-Prohibition brewing was not craft brewing. That’s shows me how much you don’t know about the rest of beer history. Beer prior to prohibition was an industrial scale operation—rife with steam billowing factories, train cars full of grain and hops and robber barons and brewing magnets—with beer being shipped all over their region and the country. The beer biz prior to prohibition was about selling as much beer, to as many people, for as much money as possible. Locality was a constraint of the market not a selective choice of exclusivity.
Let’s take the Amsdell Brewing & Malting Company for example. It was an Albany based pre-prohibition brewery which operated from the 1850s until 1912ish. By the late 1870s they had depots in Westfield, Worcester, and Pittsfield, Massachusetts; Hartford, Connecticut; Hydeville and Rutland, Vermont; Brunswick and Newark, NJ; Williamsburg, Kingston, Fultonville, Gloversville, Jamaica, Saratoga, Schenectady, Coxsackie, Amsterdam, Newburgh, Catskill, New Hamburgh, Sharon, Troy, West Troy, Cohoes, Waterford and had two depot in New York City. That’s 28 locations in five states. Pre-prohibition, not local, big.
How about outside of Albany? Maybe Detroit? How about Pabst? Pabst in Detroit was advertising its beer OUTSIDE Michigan (let alone Detroit) as early as the 1870s, and by 1900 their beer was in every major city in the U.S, and it was one of the largest breweries in the world. Pre-prohibition, not local, even bigger.
So again, I say do not attempt to saddle history with the tenets of craft—especially when you have no idea what you’re talking about.