Five Reasons We Are Bullish on Craft Beer This Month
Five Reasons We Are Bullish on Craft Beer This Month
We build tap handles in Birmingham, so we watch the beer business the way a roofer watches the weather. The last couple of years gave craft brewers plenty of hard headlines. This month the forecast looks different. The numbers are turning, the survivors are sharper, and the mood in the industry has flat out changed. Here are five reasons we are bullish on craft right now, and why we think the breweries reading this should be too.
1. Craft took market share in a down year
Overall beer fell 5.7% by volume last year. Craft held the line and actually nudged its share up to 13.4%. That is not a typo. In a market that shrank, craft grew its slice of it. The Brewers Association is calling this a year of correction with early signals of recovery, and their economists are pointing to declining interest rates and consumers ready to get back out and socialize. Translation: the breweries that made it through the shakeout are the strong ones, and the wind is starting to blow their way again. (Brewers Association)
2. The market is leaner, and that is a good thing
Brewery closures dropped from 591 to 481 year over year, and new openings cooled off too. A few years ago that would have read as bad news. Today it reads as a maturing market. The breweries still standing are leaner, more focused, and built to last. They are not chasing every trend. They are doubling down on what they do well. That is exactly the kind of operator we like building for, because quality outlasts a price war every time. (Brewers Association)
3. American craft is winning overseas
While everyone debates the domestic market, American brewers are quietly cleaning up abroad. U.S. breweries pulled down 86 medals at the Australian International Beer Awards and racked up fresh wins across European competitions. Trade show attendance for American craft in Europe is up two years running. The rest of the world wants American-made beer, and they are paying for it. We feel the same way about American-made handles. Every one we make is built here, by people you can call and talk to. Same flag, same standard. (Brewers Association Export Development Program)
4. The Great American Beer Festival is reinventing itself
For the first time in its history, GABF is moving outdoors. October 10 and 11 in Denver, open skies, live music, the whole thing reimagined as a festival experience instead of a convention hall. That tells you something about where craft is headed. The industry is not retreating, it is rethinking how it shows up. The experience is the product now, from the festival grounds down to the bar rail. The tap handle is the first piece of that experience a drinker reaches for, and it is doing marketing work whether you planned it or not. (Brewers Association)
5. Hospitality is the edge, and the details win
The clearest shift this year is the vibe. The taproom model is shining, and the brewers winning are the ones treating hospitality as the whole game. The room, the people, the little details that make a regular feel like a regular. A great handle is one of those details. It is the difference between a drinker pointing at your logo and pointing at the beer next to it. We are a small shop on purpose, so when a brewery marketer calls, they talk to the person actually making the handle, not a sales script. (Brewers Association)
Bottom line
Craft beer is not in trouble. It is in transition, and the breweries that invest in quality and experience are coming out ahead. If your beer is winning awards and your taproom is full, your tap handle should match the ambition. That is what we build, 100% American made, right here in Birmingham.
We are breaking each of these five down on X this week, one a day. Follow along at @steelcitytapco. Got a handle program you want to talk through? Call the shop.