Welcome to the “could-be-worst” era of craft beer brewing.

LAS VEGAS — The Southern California brewer found himself talking to a reporter outside an afterparty at Beer Zombie’s, a brewery on Interstate 15 just north of the Strip. It was the first time the beer maker attended the Brewers Association’s Craft Brewers Conference. “To be honest, I thought it was going to be a lot more dire and dark,” he said.

same here. His 2024 edition of the annual industry conference was held here in stunning Las Vegas last week, and there was clearly no fear on the fairgrounds for the craft beer industry’s recent grim fate. Explore millions of square feet of exhibition space and hardware displays at the Venetian Expo Center. We will demonstrate the software! Maltsters, hop growers, wholesalers and cookware manufacturers! And that thousands of brewers, drinking beer and packing swag bags, will remain in the business of selling craft beer to an increasingly apathetic, distracted, and abstinent American public. , it hasn’t become that difficult in recent years.

Missing: All doom and gloom. distress. Do you hate beer in Las Vegas? There aren’t that many.

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Don’t get me wrong, times are tough and rough for the American craft beer industry. It wasn’t at too many conferences that “20% by 2020” (like the market share of all beer sold in the U.S.) became a rallying cry that shook the industry. For years, the universal question on brewers’ lips has been, “How well are you doing?” That was then. Small independent breweries, as defined by BA, ended 2023 with around 1% less production and 3% more value. The sector accounts for 13.3% of the total U.S. beer market, and itself shrunk by more than 5% in volume last year. While more breweries opened than closed last year, the difference was small, and it looks like the ratio will finally reverse this year.

Bart Watson, BA’s chief economist and vice president of strategy, warned at a general meeting on Tuesday morning that the day could soon come when banks could no longer rely on IPAs for “immediate interests”. “As we actually measured, IPAs were down slightly in 2023.” This is a brave new world, and if that downward trend accelerates in the craft beer market’s most important and profitable style, brewing Businesses will have to be even more courageous.

Still: Just under half of all respondents to BA’s annual production survey said production would increase in 2023. Watson’s recent analysis of Tax and Trade Board (TTB) data shows that more than 600 breweries now also have spirits licenses, and brewers are increasing the number of new spirits licenses. It is shown that it has been obtained. We would like to conceptualize our business with a more flexible “total link” paradigm. Non-alcoholic beverages infused with hemp-derived tetrahydrocannabinol are seeing attractive sales growth for breweries, which are allowed by state law to enter the nascent segment. “Given the circumstances, the Kraft numbers aren’t great, but they’re not bad either,” Watson said.

The conclusion of the trade group’s years of data was more or less summed up by the slides of his characteristically enlightening hour-long presentation Tuesday morning, which showed that the 2023 brewery closure rate (approximately 4 per cent) compared favorably with more general leisure and hospitality businesses (about 10 per cent). ) “It could get worse.” If the individual brewers roaming around the Venetian these past few days felt otherwise, they weren’t wearing it on the sleeves of their parkas.

But the industry as a whole had a lot of concerns, which were thoroughly discussed over three days of seminars, meetings, and after-hours drinking parties on and off the Strip. Direct-to-consumer transportation and franchise law reform is a top priority for BA’s policy-making dual threat, with General Counsel Mark Solini and Senior Director of Federal Affairs Katie Marisic announcing that Potentially onerous nutrition labeling requirements are not far behind. BA chairman and chief executive Bob Pease made sure to point out the “growing threat posed by neo-prohibitionist groups” in his opening remarks on Monday, as did several other speakers throughout the week. Similarly stated. There are problems in the hop market, there are problems in the equipment market, there are problems in the capital market.

Let’s not forget the climate crisis and beer manufacturers’ social responsibility to stop it getting worse. “It’s hard to escape the fact that we are in an industry that literally releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. [regular] Garrett Oliver, Brooklyn Brewery’s venerable brewmaster, spoke during Wednesday’s session, talking about the environmental imperative of adopting renewable grains like fonio and kernza. As beer companies already struggling to protect margins and increase production ponder whether a more sustainable value proposition will actually make their business more sustainable, banquet halls that are too large A nervous laugh rippled through the room. (Research is limited so far, but mixed at best.)

In CBC 2024, there was a “bad cop” to Watson’s “good” counterpart. That person was Scott Metzger of Craft Ohana, the nation’s 26th largest selling craft beer maker and parent company of Maui Brewing Company and Modern Times Beer + Coffee. last year. The West Coast company’s chief operating officer poured out some tough love during a Wednesday afternoon session titled “Your Brewery Is a Business, Not a Hobby,” pointing out that during the industry’s boom over the past decade, Through grinding, the established lifestyle brewery argued that it needed to step up for the current downturn.

“Craft beer became too easy and stayed too easy until right before it wasn’t,” Metzger said. “We are not indispensable. …We can replace entire categories. You don’t have to feel sorry for this, but every day, every moment, we continue to earn our place in this industry, We must continue to earn our place in the hearts of our customers.”

“They don’t owe us anything, but we owe them for the value proposition,” Metzger added. He’s right and he should say so. I wish more of his colleagues had stayed until the afternoon of the third day to hear it.

Your humble Hop Take columnist was kind enough to stay even longer than that and attend the first annual “State of the Dark Brewery” presentation by the National Dark Beer Association (NB2A) . The organization, founded last year, said in a pre-meeting press release that its constituent companies, 85 small, independent, Black-owned breweries across the country, have grown over the past two years, despite the overall growth of the craft beer industry. It claimed to have recorded a growth of 20 percent annually. I hit a plateau. how? “It’s the exact same recipe that helped craft beer grow before,” he says of generations of black brewers like Garrett Oliver and Celeste Beatty (the first black woman to run a craft brewery at Harlem Brewing). Surrounded by some of the biggest names in the brewing world, Executive Director Kevin Asato filled a packed waiting room. Co.), Marcus Baskerville (of Weathered Souls Brewing Company and Black Is Beautiful fame) “It’s authentic to the community.”

Of course, the recipes that helped craft beer grow in the past are also responsible for its current downturn, with huge numbers of black drinkers suddenly finding themselves hungry for craft beer (thereby increasing the pie for everyone). It’s a good idea to imagine that, but the more likely short-term scenario is that these brewers, like the other brewers attending CBC, grow at the expense of their colleagues, or The opposite is true. The rising tide that once lifted all boats is receding, and not everyone can survive on trickle-down beer sales. Sure, it could be worse, but it could also be better.

Still, if it’s a reporter’s job to look at the industry with a pint glass half empty, this year’s conference confirmed that many brewers still see it differently. Why not? After all, in Las Vegas, doom and gloom can always wait until tomorrow, and optimism is forever in fashion.

Hop Ocalypse Now

Will Hop Take affect federal labor policy? Probably not. But maybe? Earlier this week, the Federal Trade Commission voted to ban most non-compete clauses, making the old clauses unenforceable and the new clauses invalid for positions below executive management. (Unleash your pearls, capitalists. The ultra-conservative U.S. Chamber of Commerce has already filed a lawsuit to overturn it.) As you may recall, earlier this year, I Big craft beer’s infamous anti-competitive and enforced non-competition banality. Coincidence? ! I mean, yes, obviously. on the other hand…

Up…

Crown & Hops and Full Circle Brewing have formed a “strategic alliance” to become the nation’s largest black-owned craft brewer…Russian River Brewing Co. Donated the entire barrel brewery to NB2A, yeah…congratulations to this year’s World Beer Cup winners…congratulations to the mixologists who made it to the 50 Best Bars of 2024 list. At least consider an off-menu Rothaus or something…

…and down

Anheuser-Busch InBev starts touring annual competition at Bud Light a year after conservative boycott began, but brand remains underperforming… Kroger sells another company 166 stores trying to get the FTC to file an “amended lawsuit” over the troubled merger with Albertsons… Faubourg Brewing Company’s nearly new $30 million factory in New Orleans Scheduled to be liquidated for just $2 million a month… Rest in peace Foxtrot, the futuristic bougie market concept that went bankrupt this week…

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