Think back to five years ago. What craft beer styles were driving attention and hype in an era before we had the faintest inkling of the COVID-19 pandemic, the craft beer industry’s slowdown, and the existential challenges faced by so many breweries today? What were drinkers chattering about and lining up for at festivals? What was seen as the state of the art?
As recently as the mid-2010s, consumers enamored with the craft beer industry still likely felt as if the beer world was in a state of near-constant evolution and introduction of novelty. And in many respects, it was. India pale ale was undergoing transformation after transformation, splitting off down paths of greater and lesser strength, changing color and texture, while new hop varietals crept into the market and transformed the very idea of what “hoppy” flavors could be.
There’s no doubt that the slowing of the craft beer industry’s growth fed into what has become this creative stagnation. Prodded on by the combination of widespread slowing growth and the constant openings of new breweries that blithely ignored that slowing growth for the last half decade, seemingly determined as they were to cannibalize any given market’s available revenue, the go-to move became to embrace whatever styles were seen as the safest bets.
In each scenario, breweries are left in the same position: Trying as hard as they can to hold on to the remaining customer base, unable or unwilling to change in meaningful ways as that base steadily atrophies.I’m a 36-year-old millennial beer and spirits writer, someone who has been passionate about the craft beer scene for roughly 15 years at this point.
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Source: chicagotribune - 🏆 8. / 91 Read more »