The Brewers Association released their state of the industry report this month. Helpful slides broke down the state of American beer, the overall craft beer market, and new trends. Most telling was a slide called “What the beer drinker is thinking.” According to the mind readers at the BA, beer drinkers are thinking “local,” “trying something new,” and, not to be taken for granted, “beer is fun.”
Agree. Beer is fun. And now the BA has finally sanctioned that fact.
But it’s most fun for brew pubs and microbreweries, according to the data. Brew pubs had a 14.8 percent growth rate in 2016, and micros had a 27 percent growth rate. There were also a lot of new craft brewery openings (845) compared to relatively few closings (97). Overall craft beer growth, however, fell from 12 percent in 2015 to 6 percent in 2016.
So yes, growth is slowing in some areas of the craft beer sector, but craft beer as a whole is still growing. If only these promising stats would get people to finally stop talking about Boston Beer Company.
In other beer news this week:
Taco Bells across Canada are getting beer.
Starting in June, Toronto Taco Bells will get beer. The majority of Canadian locations opening in 2017 will do the same. Back in the U.S., we’re jealously counting the miles from New York City to the nearest Canadian Taco Bell (375). My couch is great, but eating Double Deckers while drinking Tecate would be so much better in a purple faux-leather Taco Bell booth. There are six Bells in the U.S. that sell beer, wine, and frozen alcoholic drinks, but no announcement for any more.
File this one under: just another excuse for people to say they’re moving to Canada.
Meanwhile, in the New York…
Like water into wine, a company is turning bread into beer.
A lot of food gets wasted in the U.S. every year. Somehow, in the richest nation in the world, between 30 and 40 percent of food is wasted. Seriously. Now someone from the U.K. is coming to help mitigate that number. With beer.
A beer called Toast Ale recently debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival in Manhattan. It was made from 250 pounds of leftover sandwich bread. Beer from sliced bread is the best thing since sliced bread.
Besides, bread isn’t fun. Beer is fun.
And over in Brooklyn,
Other Half made a video showing how crazy craft beer people are.
People wait in lines for beer releases. A lot of it isn’t consumed at the time (the underground craft beer trade is a force to be reckoned with), but when a brewery like Other Half announces the release of their beer ‘Like Whoa,’ they can push 700 cases in two hours. Which actually happened in real life.
The brewery made a documentary about the whole experience, and the New York Times tried to figure out what the deal is. The mini doc is a nice 5 minute watch, but the gem really comes from a man named Kevin Weinisch. He was quoted as saying, “You party in the morning, then dad in the afternoon.” Amazing.
And finally…
Heineken Showed Pepsi how to make a culturally aware advertisement
After what happened with Pepsi, I wasn’t sure I wanted to see another brand blindly attempt to connect with political and social movements through advertisements. But Heineken changed all that with this four minute commercial. It features three groups of people with opposing viewpoints: a feminist and an anti feminist, someone against transgender rights and someone who is transgender, and a climate change denier and an environmentalist. The pairs go in not knowing anything about each other, and are tasked with building a bar. After performing this task together, their differing viewpoints are exposed, and they can choose to leave or to drink a beer with their intellectual nemesis. All six choose to sit down and talk it out. It was a perfect counterpoint to the Pepsi commercial’s insensitivity, and sure, we know it was a commercial designed to play on our emotions to sell beer. But it worked.
Thank you, Heineken.
