Beer Advocate magazine is always good to start me off on a beer industry tangent, and the latest issue is no exception. In their opening salvo, they returned from the 2013 Craft Brewers Convention with three key notes and among them, they mentioned that, “We shouldn’t be celebrating fewer people drinking beer, even if it’s large brewers taking the hit”
With all due respect, I think that is hogwash. And that is not simply because I am more bullish on the future of craft beer than the Doom & Gloom camp. It’s because I believe that a consumer who leaves Bud or Miller or Coors or any watery beer on the bar is leaving low quality behind. And in the end those people will be drawn back to craft beer if they haven’t been already.
I will grant that some people are leaving for health reasons or for wine or spirits but if 10 people stop buying BMC, I think some of them are becoming craft beer consumers. Until a study of buying habits is done (which I would like to see), I won’t hazard a guess as to the percentages but craft beer must be winning some of those people. But let’s say 3 out of the 10 become “crafty”. That means a net gain of 3. Craft beer hasn’t lost, it has gained.
Now you can argue that for future growth, we will need the other 7 people too but the big multi-nationals won’t lose their gigantic market share overnight. They may very well be shedding a trickle of market share each year well into when my nephews are having kids. And none of them are even teenagers yet.
And since when has B-M-C been truly considered representative of beer? I thought craft beer is the true representation. I stopped eating at McDonald’s and Burger King because my concept of what makes a “burger” has changed. And as craft beer matures into a well-known industry that same change of perception will happen to more and more people who will call B-M-C beer because that is what it technically is; but when they say beer, they will mean “craft”. Much like when I say “burger”, I mean In-n-Out.
Craft and Industrial beers are not twins who can feel when the other is hurt. They are distant cousins at best and if one loses steam or their reputation, the other will not be tied to their fates. And I am not gloating over the B-M-C losing ground. I would prefer that they make better beer and if they continue to refuse to do that, at least distribute better beer.
There are much thornier discussion to be having in the craft beer world. Taxation, green initiatives and others should be occupying our time.
Interesting comparison to burgers and In-N-Out. That’s actually a massive chain, but they do seem interested in maintaining focus and high quality. At what point does a burger chain, or a brewery, cross over from craft to mass market? Is it due to size, or due to an approach.