I finished reading the Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver, founder of the FiveThirtyEight Blog, and one of the big takeaways for me has been what prognosticators don’t consider when making a prediction or a forecast. (Yes, those are two different beasts)
It can be due to bias that is well known or too subtle to catch. It can be due to their being too much noise to find the signal. Or it can be due to using the wrong sample set all together.
It makes me wonder what data is being unconsidered in the world of craft beer. And/Or. What data shouldn’t be used.
The big data question that has been discussed ad nauseum is the Bubble Issue. Are we at a saturation point for breweries? With this book in mind, I checked a sample of articles on this topic. What I found was that chasing the new is big, IPA’s are big, demand is strong, market share is growing. Loads of positives but also a growing sense of foreboding. That a popping sound is soon to be heard.
I don’t have the statistical training to come up with an algorithm or equation to explain all of craft beer economics. And I don’t see others with rock solid evidence either. No one has calculated the craft beer consumer market and come up with a tipping point for amount of breweries or amount of barrels that the market can stand. Could the generation after the millenials return to the watery lagers? No one has said where the slow trickle of losses at the corporate water lager merchants will come to a rest because this is the first real challenge to their hegemony.
Plus, we can’t really compare the last beer bubble to this one. Now and then, though not separated by much in years, are far apart in so many ways. Dominant beer styles is one glaring aspect. Ambers and pales were big back in the day. Now it is IPA, barrel-aged and sours. Distribution is different. No Stone delivering other craft brands. Education is vastly different. So many customers with knowledge. Still room to grow on that count but before nearly everything had to be explained. The economy then and now was different. Then you factor in that the youngsters drinking craft now, grew up with it. They have only known a world with great beer. I and others can still unfondly remember the days of limited choice.
I don’t doubt that a bubble may be a coming. That poorly brewed beer and poorly run breweries may not survive. But the size of the bubble and when it arrives may be as hard to discern as determining when the next earthquake hits L.A.