65. Craft Beer Is Oversaturated--How Nice Would Just Plain Saturated Be?

If only craft beer business struggles led to a meaningful, long-term beneficial culling; plus tarot for making it rain.

Via The Drinks Business (from an article discussing craft beer slowing down back in 2015!)

Choice Is Good, But Maybe Having Over 9,000 Options Isn’t Totally Necessary—and Also Might Be Self-Sabotaging?

I regret to inform you, if you’ve been keeping your head in the sand (if so, jealous!), that a lot of the news about how craft beer is doing is, well, bad news.

From Zoe Licata’s reporting for Brewbound on September 12:

“Craft dollar sales are down -5.9% year-to-date through August 20 in multi-outlet plus convenience channels tracked by NielsenIQ. The segment recorded the second largest dollar sales decline in the period, behind hard seltzers (-10.2%).”

Analyzed by Bump Williams Consulting, the data from NielsenIQ shows only a quarter of Nielsen-tracked craft beer brands are seeing growth, and craft beer lags just behind overall beer. Craft beer brands, as defined by the Brewers Association, declined by 7% year-on-year—though that might not be as bad as it sounds and could be attributed to the steadier performance of larger brands like New Belgium and Sierra Nevada. Bump Williams has also seen a drop in the number of craft beer SKUs on shelves—maybe just breweries honing in on what works and cutting everything else for effectiveness, but still indicative of craft beer distribution and shelf real estate decreasing. Craft beer is losing space to hard seltzer and RTD cocktails.

Facts are facts: hard seltzer and canned cocktails (and just about everything else under the sun that people are finding ways to boozify) are stealing craft beer’s shares, and doing so in the most organized and impactful fashion courtesy of Gen Z’s preference for them. A lot of this might make you think of Bryan Roth’s epic poem/ongoing “nobody likes beer anymore” Twitter thread, so let’s actually take a glimpse at two pieces of evidence.

Bryan Roth @BryanDRoth

nobody likes beer anymore

Bryan Roth @BryanDRoth

nobody likes beer anymore

There’s plenty more where that came from, my friends.

Look to Kate Bernot’s reporting for Good Beer Hunting, like this August piece on New England craft distributors downsizing or ceasing operations all together under the weight of climbing costs and competition, both of which are pumping craft beer’s brakes. And, there are some mixed messages in Bart Watson’s midyear report for the Brewers Association:

“First up is scan data, which I might summarize with the words “underwhelming” or even “concerning” depending on your point of view. To frame the data in some context, total beer volume sales were down 6.5% in the first half of the year, and dollar sales down 2.0% versus a year ago (IRI Group, total U.S., multi outlet with convenience (MULO+C) +total liquor). This shouldn’t be overly shocking given that, A) the comps for packaged sales in the first half of 2021 were clearly still elevated (10% above 2019 by volume and 20% in dollar sales), and B) the on-premise in the first half of 2022 was much stronger than the first half of 2021. On point B, the relatively strong second half of 2021 makes it easy to forget how much the on-premise was still recovering in the first half of 2021, meaning that some of the dynamics we’re seeing when looking at year-over-year numbers this year are still relative to channel shift.”

Supply costs and availability skyrocket, as does competition; the economy is bad and getting bad-der; the kids are all right with their hard seltzer and canned cocktails and boozy kombuchas and protein drinks (oh, the humanity!). Could we finally start to see the number of US craft breweries—which, let’s be honest, has felt like it’s climbing to just absurd levels in the last few years—take a notable tumble?

And—hear me out—might that not be such a terrible thing?

The only downside to breweries closing is the most important of all the downsides, which is that people would lose their jobs. No one wants that (well, no one with a soul wants that). So, I say all of the following with the giant caveat that this would all only feel like a positive if everyone who was working for a brewery that ended up closing magically happened to be someone who didn’t really want to be in the beer industry anymore anyway, and just ended up getting the push they needed to find a job they actually loved, and that it was easy and quick enough for them to find said job. That’s a real perfect-world, unrealistically idealistic and tidy outcome, but the fact that it is so lofty just underlines how complicated this all is. Think about all the problematic breweries you want to see die so that their problematic owners don’t get to keep enjoying any financial or clout gains, but then you think about the employees—you want them free of that owner but you also want them to be able to do that on their own terms so they don’t go without a paycheck. It’s yet another reminder of how dire the need is for the beer industry to pay better wages and always provide health insurance, so that the people making the industry actually move can afford to make decisions based on their own well-being. Anyway…

Speaking here in our perfect world where every industry employee gets to go do whatever job would really fulfill them and pay them well and allow them to live comfortably, now, let’s call a spade a spade. Craft beer is over-saturated. Just since I became of legal drinking age, I’ve seen craft beer go from maybe a bit too hard to find, to this magical in-between where it was definitely around but took just a little searching which made it all feel special, to absolutely fucking ubiquitous. Hazy IPA is everything and everything is hazy IPA. There’s no thrill of the chase anymore, no real need to treasure or savor anything. Factor in craft beer’s gamification and insatiable thirst for over-the-top hoppiness along with over 9,000 breweries in this country, and you’ve got a sea of soul-crushing sameness. Taprooms used to feel like a special experience, now they’re becoming like chain restaurants: functional, convenient, everywhere; you don’t even have to think, you can just pop in and get beer to lips and be on your way.

Think about how formulaic the design for so many taprooms has become—Dave Infante’s VinePair piece, “All Craft Breweries Are Instagram Traps Until Proven Otherwise” will bring that point into focus really well. In the blink of an eye, we went from all taprooms being bare industrial spaces—cool in a way, in the beginning, because all the attention was on the beer, but we definitely needed more comfort and accessibility—to taprooms starting to break out of the mold in a refreshing way, to all following taprooms then shifting to that methodology and making sure their spaces were modern-minimalist-chic with a photogenic corner of art and/or cringey tongue-in-cheek neon signs, “Live Laugh Love” for the Instagram set. (Another good analysis of this trend in another industry that still feels helpfully relevant here is an issue of Jason Diamond’s The Melt newsletter, on “millennial hotels.”)

What this led to in recent years is a wave of people opening breweries not because they’re so passionate about craft beer that they don’t care how virtually impossible surviving this industry is, but because they can track a formula to relative success and turn the whole thing into a marketing endeavor. I’ve had to toss interviews for various projects in the past because once I get the founder on the phone, all they can muster for their motivations in opening a brewery is that they followed trends and knew they could apply their business background to paint-by-numbering those trends and giving your average ironic Croc-wearing, casual fruited sour or hazy IPA fan what they want to drink/post online.

I do hope it’s obvious enough that I’m not painting all 9,000+ breweries with this brush. There are hundreds and hundreds of breweries making absolutely inspired beer, and serving it in spaces that range from pleasant enough to intriguing, maybe even with meaningful attention paid to accessibility and inclusivity. There are hundreds more who have been around for 20+ years already, and perhaps don’t have a finger on the pulse of beer trends—but they don’t have to, because their identity is more built on tradition; they’re cozy brewpubs with deep roots in their community and a firm grasp on well-made beer in classic styles. But. There are also hundreds of breweries who are like, “Okay, we gave you neon signs, a tufted couch next to a giant plant, accidentally aggressive tongue-in-cheek signage, a food truck, and 12 different IPAs plus three sours, two pastry stouts—what else do we have to do to make a Hop Culture round-up? Corn hole still? Or, oh, I bet we need a LUKR faucet, huh?” And there are also hundreds in the cozy ol’ brewpub format that are going through the motions at best and obstinately ignoring things like better brewing methods and growing awareness among consumers of how important clean draft lines are at worst.

We know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that not all 9,200-ish(?) breweries in this country are making good beer. Not all are making creative beer, or traditional beer, or following any worthwhile path. Not all are even being all that intentional about methods or ingredients—or even safety! We know that not all are offering up an experience worth a patron’s time in the taproom. And, thanks to events of the past couple years, we know that not all breweries are run by good people. Not all breweries give a shit about being inclusive, equitable, accessible, welcoming, safe, diverse. Not all breweries care about having a code of conduct, or getting involved in certain causes that, I don’t know, might alienate…misogynists? Not all breweries care about walking the walk and actually doing the work, about going deeper than an Instagram post and actually placing inclusivity and equity at the core of their hiring practices and workplace environments. Not all breweries care about the kind of impact they could have in their communities, and about the responsibility to set a good example when you’re a business that’s also a community hub.

We don’t need 9,200-ish breweries, folks. Having thousands of breweries is a positive: we want everyone to have access to craft beer and the community of a welcoming taproom. But I just don’t think we need one on every street corner, or entire districts of cities where dozens are packed in, and half of them aren’t doing a damned thing differently. There are only so many flights you can drink, so many crowlers you can take home, so many Instagram posts you can snap, so many trivia nights you can put on your calendar, so many shelf space in retail accounts for them all to compete over. I’m sure it won’t happen this neatly—we’ll lose fantastic breweries while painfully mediocre, bland, even problematic breweries chug along—but theoretically, I don’t think a little shrinkage in our staggering volume of breweries would be a bad thing. Ideally, the current state of business and the economy would separate the good from the bad, letting the carbon copies and insincere attempts fade away while the breweries dedicated to both good beer and good community work absorb all those consumers and grow.

Imagine a beercation to a “craft beer capital” where instead of feeling overwhelmed by 250 choices and having mixed results with the handful you choose because some are great and some are duds, you have, say, 150 choices and feel confident you’ll be happy wherever you land. What year would that have been? 2016? 2017? What if we could do 2017 numbers with 2022 (or, better yet, even more forward-thinking—will we be better in 2025? Probably not but nice to think so.) values?

The only thing that worries me about craft brewery shrinkage is the growing trend of craft-brewery chains, and breweries like Urban South expanding by snatching up existing taprooms. I know remakes are hot these days, but I really don’t want to see a remake of post-Prohibition consolidation, watching the eclectic landscape of craft breweries in the US get whittled into far fewer channels that still market themselves as “craft,” you know, compared to Big Beer, but it would all start to feel like an Epcot version of craft beer, wouldn’t it? I hope that models like brewery incubators and collectively owned breweries temper that by welcoming in a constant stream of much more diverse beer makers for whom starting a brewing company is suddenly feasible because of shared costs and resources. Let’s be optimistic for now, because there’s enough going on rendering optimism impossible, and focus on the latter option.

Hire Me for Word Things!

The other component of what I do aside from writing is copy, content, and branding consulting. For 14 years, I’ve helped brands, designers, retailers, etc. with all manners of web content, social media copy, marketing emails, press releases, blogs, newsletters, and more. I’d really like to take on more clients in craft beer. I have a strong track record with results, and also with working super efficiently, taking direction, and collaborating effectively. And, I’m flexible with rates. So if you need anything that falls under the “words” umbrella, take a look at my services and portfolio and give me a shout!

Beer Tarot!

This week I pulled the Nine of Pentacles.

Via Wikipedia

Pentacles as a suit speaks to money, property, and achievement, and the Nine of Pentacles in particular is about abundance, luxury, and striving for or enjoying financial independence and security. This card might find you on this journey or at its finish line, but it signals that you are working hard and that work is paying off, and that you should allow yourself to enjoy that a bit. No tarot card is ever going to tell you to blow all your money at once, so this is all within reason and relative to your situation, but: have a wee splurge. Pamper yourself. Take a trip. Go get a facial. Buy that thing that’s been in your cart for weeks while you hemmed and hawed. You earned it. And the Nine of Pentacles says that whatever it is will be a good choice for you and your current track, and above all else, you’ve got to celebrate your accomplishments every now and then—so you deserve this #treatyourself moment.

It’s hard work and responsibility that gets you to this point, so the Nine of Pentacles assumes you will balance that with your little bout of indulgence. You want that new jacket, but you also want to maintain your hard-earned financial situation, so you will keep both top of mind when making your decisions. This kind of balance may also spread out to other areas of your life, reminding you to hold close both responsibility and fun.

Buy yourself a bottle of something special and actually drink it instead of saving it for some special occasion that never actually comes. Make celebrating you the special occasion now. Or, you can go literal with the Ca$h Mony Imperial IPA from 4 Hands Brewing, which did its own responsible indulging in hops (Simcoe, Mosaic, Galaxy, and Citra).

This Week’s Boozy Media Rec

Beer + cider expert Beth Demmon has written a fantastic and fascinating piece on craft breweries expanding their portfolios with cider for The Washington Post. I’ll admit, I don’t know as much I’d like to about cider, but am very open to and enthusiastic about learning, and it’s through craft breweries that I feel most comfortable with and excited about starting that journey (and I’m not alone; Beth’s upcoming book is going to delight a lot of beer lovers, cider lovers, newcomers on one or both sides, etc.!). In addition to breweries starting to make cider, honor cider traditions, and get creative, many are also creating joint taprooms and entering cidery + brewery partnerships. These forward-thinking, inclusive taprooms are just the kind I’m talking about in this week’s issue, that I want to see come out of this stagnation-in-craft-beer period, because they are exciting businesses you want to see grow for years to come.

Ex-BEER-ience of the Week

The New York City Brewers Guild had its annual Blocktoberfest last Saturday so how could I not pick that as this week’s ex-beer-ience? The weather was less than lovely but I’d argue it wasn’t uncooperative either. I heard the participating vendors had a tough go of it setting up with the wind and rain, and my heart goes out to them—troopers and heroes, the lot of them, dealing with that to warm us attendees’ dreary little hearts with delicious beer. It never more than misted, really, for the fest, itself, and, this being my first Blocktoberfest(!), I was really struck by how cozy and convivial the event was. I talk a lot about how weary I’m growing of beer festivals, but I will happily go forever and ever to somewhat smaller events like this—I believe there were about 35 vendors, which felt perfect. More than enough selection, but totally not overwhelming. It was pure fun, and I leisurely got to try lots of absolute, straight-up bangers. A grisette from Big aLICe, fresh-hop IPAs from Evil Twin and KCBC, a roggenbier from Flagship—and DaleView Biscuits & Beer poured a barrel-aged märzen on cask that, not to be dramatic or anything, was a revelation.

Until next week, here’s Darby watching, always watching, through the BierWax window.