Author: Professor Good Ales

America has fallen out of love with beer, the story goes. Sales are down. Market share is shrinking. Spirits-based drinks are ascendant. And for breweries, a storm is coming.

That story is incomplete, at the very least. A seismic shift really is occurring within the beer industry, which weathered a pandemic that kept Americans out of bars and, before that, withstood the Trump administration’s trade war that put a 10 percent tariff on aluminum imports, and which now faces intense competition from hard seltzers like White Claw and Truly. Today American consumers have the most diverse array of alcoholic options, from the most diverse array of producers, in the country’s history. And while this may be great news for drinkers—especially those who don’t like beer-flavored beer—it may not be for brewers.

The overall business picture of beer is that it’s in decline. But the decline is not a free fall. Beer is still, by far, the most widely consumed alcoholic beverage by volume. In fact, overall alcohol consumption had actually increased in the past couple of decades leading into 2021. So, when alcohol industry analysts say beer is falling, they’re talking about beer losing market share of retail dollars. In 2022 spirit sales amounted to 42.9 percent, and beer accounted for 41.2 percent—its first year in second place.

Beer has actually been losing market share for some time. From 2011 to 2021, for example, Anheuser-Busch InBev—the conglomerate behind Budweiser, Bud Light, Michelob, Stella Artois, and more—fell from 46.9 percent of the market to 38.6 percent. But now Americans’ changing taste in alcohol has reached an inflection point, and it isn’t the Budweiser bottle that’s sweating. If your brewery is very large—or, perhaps surprisingly, if it’s very small—you’ll likely find comfortable shelter from the storm coming for the beer market.

It’s the brewers in the middle—the craft-beer makers that have a regional or national footprint, the non-Buds, the non-Millers, what you probably think of as the good beers—that could get soaked.

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Dozens of London pubs have acquired a new decorative feature this summer. On bar tops across the city stand vaguely old-fashioned, totem pole-like objects amid serried ranks of colorful keg fonts. These are handpumps, traditionally used to serve cask ale — for so long a staple in this country. But in many of the British capital’s pubs, they’re now purely for show.

Covid-19 has been hard on cask ale, the “warm” British beer that completes its fermentation in the serving vessel. This is how it acquires its distinctive soft carbonation, a key part of what makes it so enjoyable and such a contrast to keg beer, which generally has carbon dioxide added from an outside source. Cask needs to be drunk quickly, within three days of being breached, because when beer is pumped out of the cask, air enters. Also known as “Real Ale,” a term coined by consumer organization the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) in the 1970s, it’s best enjoyed at cellar temperature, around 53 degrees Fahrenheit, not chilled like keg.

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SO…within the past couple of months, some breweries have failed and some have made some drastic decisions, spurred along by the well-established New Reality of post-pandemic America. Yes, certainly Covid was exactly like a nuclear warhead, planted within an earth fault, exploding and wrecking shit in every direction. MANY business of all types closed the doors for good and some of those – actually a reasonably small number – were breweries. And of course, I read this morning that reaction to this latest couple of Unthinkable Events – The brilliant Lost Abbey scaling back, moving, and curtailing distribution to California only and Anchor Brewing cancelling their iconic Christmas Ale and similarly limiting distribution – constitute Chicken Little screaming that the sky is falling and that “everything’s Changing!!”.

And that part, certainly, is true…but not for the reasons given.

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There is a growing, well, for lack of a better term, “substratum” of US craft beer that’s been labeled “convenience store only”. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve probably seen some of ’em: tall, 19.2 ounce cans, usually cartoon or otherwise attention-grabbing artwork, and the message “9%” large and unmistakable, there on the front.

As one of those tiresome beer snots who does NOT, like EVER, buy his beer in a convenience store, I didn’t find out about these beers for a very long time. But we were taking one of our frequent day trips around this magical state of Washington, one sunny afternoon in late spring, and found ourselves in a line for a ferry, with maybe an hour to kill. As we were hungry and, on this unseasonably warm afternoon, THIRSTY, I walked out of the ferry lot to a nearby independent market and looked in their beer cooler and…it was like looking through Stargate. A whole new world was there, clearly visible…and a bit frightening.

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“Edinburgh, where have you been all of my life?” That was my very first thought when I stepped off the train at Haymarket Station on that sunny autumn day. The stone buildings, bustling thoroughfares, and convivial pub terraces overflowing with people reminded me of London. But the further I got from Haymarket Station, the more Edinburgh revealed its own unique charms, by turns cosmopolitan and whimsical.

dinburgh’s narrow wynds, vaulted stairways, and covered alleys are like a cross between going down Alice in Wonderland’s rabbit hole and entering J.K. Rowling’s Diagon Alley. You’d half expect to meet a wizard down one of those lanes after a few too many pints at the pub.

As for those pubs, Edinburgh’s drinking establishments are a testament to when the city was one of the world’s premier brewing centers. Edinburgh boasted around 280 breweries in its heyday during the early/mid-nineteenth century.

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Here’s my very real question:

WHY is bemoaning the decline and doom of craft brewing such an all-consuming obsession to so many people? Beer pundits used to be content with debating attenuation and mash temperatures and when to hop the ales. But, in increasing numbers, for AT LEAST the past fifteen years, I read this stuff about how “Craft beer is DOOMED!“, “The Craft Boom is OVER!“, “The consumers are turning away!“. EASILY fifteen years, now, and I probably missed a few of these screeds.

Here’s what’s REALLY happening: Craft beer BOOMED, in a way virtually unprecedented in American business, since the end of the 80s, when brewery numbers started to climb stratospherically. In the beginning, the craft community was insanely close and tightly knit. Everyone involved knew and took to heart that a rising tide floats all boats. Cooperation was a given. People shared ideas and methods and equipment and sometimes even labor. It was hippie-ish in its aura. Yeah, breweries failed but usually because they were run by people unprepared to run businesses at all. And the Boom went on for a LONG time.

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YOU’VE ENTERED THE BAVARIAN BREWERY OF OLD…

The Bavarian Brewing Co., Inc., was once the largest brewer in the state of Kentucky and the largest employer in Covington, KY. Out of dozens of breweries that operated during the 19th and 20th centuries in the Cincinnati area, it’s the only one with a remaining structure that was used for former Brew and Mill Houses. This edifice is visible and easily accessible off I-75 at the 12th Street Exit in Covington. (See a location map to visit.) It was formerly Brew Works and Jillian’s, and was re-purposed in 2019 for office use as the Kenton County Government Center. There is also a Bavarian Brewery Exhibit that explores the history of the brewery and it buildings, accompanied with artifacts and Breweriana items on display. A Riedlin – Schott Room (named after the families who owned and operated the brewery), is available for community activities, meetings and events. This room and the exhibit (including the display areas), will be used for brewery tours featuring the history of the brewery. In addition, this website will help augment the brewery’s history, while also documenting the progression of inventions and events that impacted the broader brewing industry.

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Description

If you go, chasing rabbits, may you find yourself in a new realm wonderland juicy-hop filled bliss. Feed your head with this Transcendent IPA using Cascade, Cashmere, Mosaic,
Azacca and Citra hops along with the new Thiol-active Star Party yeast designed to provide an atomic burst of Passion fruit, Pineapple, and Tangerine juiciness that will blow your mind… go ask Alice, I think she’ll know.

Description

Super small batch IPA brewed with experimental malt formulas and hop combinations. These are the most heavily-hopped NEIPA’s we’ve ever made, brewed exclusively for the taproom.

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