News What Does the Next Decade Hold for Beer?

Another decade behind us.

Take yourself back to the year 2010 and recall what the beer industry looked like. Far, far fewer breweries, IPA’s just beginning to emerge as the leading craft style, Anheuser-Busch InBev had yet to acquire their first craft brewery (they purchased Goose Island in 2011) and craft was the darling of both retailers and wholesalers, bringing new excitement and high margin to the beer space.

Thinking back to those times, no one would have ever dreamed that there would be the string of acquisitions by Big Beer, or that venture capital and private equity would rush in to prop up hundreds of craft breweries struggling to keep up with soaring sales, or that sales growth would screech to a sudden halt, falling far short of the “20% market share by 2020” prediction.

And no one definitely ever thought the raging product entering the next decade would be a……hard seltzer!?

With that in mind, can we predict (or guess) what might be in store over the next 10 years? Forbes takes a query of industry experts to see what they have in the crystal ball here.

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One Comment “What Does the Next Decade Hold for Beer?”

  • Smitty

    says:

    Well, about the predicted 20% market share, I knew it would never come close. Why? Because as part of my MBA project on opening a brewery, there are tons of numbers out there and statistics showing that wine and spirits consumption was growing over the last 10 years while beer consumption was falling over that same time period. I don’t understand the fascination by the Brewer’s Association to focus on breweries opening and production numbers but forget to mention how many breweries are closing and the growth is not the same as it once was. The fact of the matter is beer consumption per capita is dropping and yet breweries are still popping up everywhere. Why? The market is saturated and any new brewery is going to siphon off business from other local breweries because people aren’t drinking as much as they once did and NO ONE is loyal to brands anymore. You will still have your core people that drink at certain establishments on a normal basis but everyone wants to constantly try new things and that’s just difficult for all breweries to do that.

    As for the IPA craze and such, IPAs are overrated and what I mean by that, you can create them with inferior ingredients. I know because we did this experiment at our brewery using cheap Canadian grain vs Weyermann grain vs Briess vs Simpson’s. While the Simpson’s did taste better compared to the others, they were all very close because hops (and lots of them) can mask imperfections and the true taste of the barley. Try making an English Ale or a German Lager with crappy, cheap grain and see what happens! It’s sad because styles are getting crossed/muddied…etc. and I have no idea why other than someone “wants to be different”. What is a black IPA or a Blonde Stout? Just sales gimmicks…

    Beermeister

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