Where's American craft brewing heading?

Maybe this isn't quite on topic with hop growing, but I figure we all need something to discuss besides spring preorders or we'll go crazy - So-o-o-o where do you all think craft brewing is heading over the next 5 years?
IMHO, I think the next push is going to be in the area of bohemian/fruit beers. I am basing that on the observation of all the other alcoholic beverages - wine, vodka, rum, schnapps - all went from commodity flavors to fruity. Look how Mike's hard lemonade progressed; or Vodka. When I was a kid, vodka came in one flavor -"vodka"
I imagine a bar tap setup where Ales are tapped and cherry, blueberry, pomegranate shots are added. Kinda like how they used to make cherry coke, the old fashioned way. (The big thing at our local pub seems to be drinking beer and doing flavored shots - so maybe I'm not predicting much here)
What do you think?

Well, Mike's hard lemonade is a drink for women.

Budweiser might try a fruit beer, but considering the direction they are already heading with Platinum, I doubt it. Michelob already makes a bunch of fruity beers which I never see anyone drinking.

The direction things are heading are towards more Belgian and sour beers. Look at the success of Russian River and Jolly Pumpkin. The market is saturated with IPAs.

Also, BMC is going to have to start really trying to go after craft beer drinkers because they are losing market share every year.

the next big thing in craft beer is cider.

I don't know where it will go but the trend does seem like many homebrewers are playing around with it. For me, just my 2 cents. Putting fruit and what not in beer is just plain wrong. Liquor has been mixed with sweet stuff for a long time to cut down on the alcohol, fine. But beer ought to taste like beer. Barley, Hops, Yeast and water but that's just me.

I've been seeing a lot more barrel aged brews around.

A brewery in the quad cities ages one of their brews in old templeton rye barrels. I've heard of places using old wine barrels too. I tried a stout this weekend with oak chips in it.

I would like to try using some wood chips myself at some point.

Around here I'm seeing a trend of apa style brews loaded with low alpha hops. They are very good, easy drinking beers with lots of hop flavor and aroma but without alot of bitterness.

Fruit beers have been around forever and have never risen to a strong popularity level, why would that change suddenly?

The spirits drinker and the craft beer drinker have almost nothing in common if you look at the market. Craft beer bars very little in common with nightclubs other than the requirement to hold a liquor license.

I see craft brewing and home brewing expanding and the variety of quality beers going up. More people are becoming aware of the tremendous variety and quality out there now. As demand rises for quality beer the variety of beers available will go up. As home brewing expands more people will convert to quality brews. Having only been brewing 11 short months, brewing batch 021 right now, and converted at least 4 BMC drinkers to quality craft beer. As craft brewing expands it will become like the way it was when each town/city had its own quality brews using local ingredients. Will a great time for beer!

Airborneguy said:

Fruit beers have been around forever and have never risen to a strong popularity level, why would that change suddenly?

The spirits drinker and the craft beer drinker have almost nothing in common if you look at the market. Craft beer bars very little in common with nightclubs other than the requirement to hold a liquor license.

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This.

Honestly I can't really remember the last time I bought any beer other than when going out to eat or party. The vast majority of the time I only drink the beer I brew. Don't get me wrong, I drink a lot of it... But if you ask me that's where we're all headed, and rightfully so. I prefer my beer over any I can buy.

+1 on the comment above about cider. The former owner/brewmaster at Goose Island is developing a cidery in Michigan, I think, with big aspirations.

Cider is the most Americana of beverages. It goes back to when farms along the seacoast and in New England didn't grow barley, but everyone had apple trees. I would love to see a growing and thriving American cider movement.

I also hope that, in urban areas at least, with the huge increase breweries and brew pubs, that there is a greater emphasis on drinking local beers and developing a local beer culture.

I think the next big move in the craft beer market will be increased local production and consumption. More and more places are reaching a threshold where you can drink a great variety of beers without having to buy anything made more than an hour away. This dovetails nicely with a growing local food movement. Partially in response to this, and partially because everyone and his brother wants to get into brewing nowadays, we should see a great increase in the number of tiny regional breweries whose emphasis isn't to get bottles in stores nationwide, but merely to supply their own restaurant and maybe get some kegs in a few other joints.

Drinking craft beer then becomes a much more community-based and casual affair, and the beers brewed will reflect this. Expect a greater number of lighter, session-able beers to become popular, and expect the downfall of the IIIPA (or anything 'Triple Imperial') as a consistently-brewed style. This is already happening to a degree; in my hometown, even larger breweries such as Founders have brewpub-only lines of session beers for the hordes of blue collar workers that show up every evening. They are of very good quality, but drink easily.

Additionally, when breweries are more locally-focused they can more readily release one-off or annual 'event' beers. Another brewery near me recently had a sort of Autumn-fest. They had ten beers they had made just for the occasion - some oak-aged or soured versions of ordinary beers, some entirely original. They were served almost in their entirety just that night. I expect some to return on a yearly basis. And that sort of thing - congruence with local seasons and events, and very limited celebratory brews - I expect to see more of.

Basically, much of America may finally gain a bit of old-world feel: each region with its own distinctive flourishes, styles, and traditions.

That's a bit rose-tinted, to be sure. There will be downfalls, losses and aggravations we can't yet expect. But overall, this is a great time and place to be a brewer.

I like the way you think Skyforger.

Pappers_ said:

+1 on the comment above about cider. The former owner/brewmaster at Goose Island is developing a cidery in Michigan, I think, with big aspirations.

Cider is the most Americana of beverages. It goes back to when farms along the seacoast and in New England didn't grow barley, but everyone had apple trees. I would love to see a growing and thriving American cider movement.

I also hope that, in urban areas at least, with the huge increase breweries and brew pubs, that there is a greater emphasis on drinking local beers and developing a local beer culture.

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I agree. New Zealand's cider market has really boomed in the past two years. I lead student trips down there and we usually stop at a Monteith's brewery for a tour. A few years back their original brewery switched to only producing cider. People love it. All of the women on my trips love it. I can see it being a huge untapped market here in the US.

I've done a bit of thinking about an answer to this very interesting question. In the end, I think the comments made by Pappers and Skyforger are pretty bang on. There does seem to be a bit of a reflexive trend occurring in the consumption of both food and drink. Locally produced options are more and more in abundance, and I think the whole "quantity over quality" thing has finally started to wear off. When people are on the brink of bankruptcy and stressed about money due to their purchase of a poorly-constructed home with a poorly-constructed mortgage (the product of a poorly-constructed regulatory system), they don't look to more poorly-constructed goods from faceless strangers as the solution.

Instead, quality and trust/assurance are sought out. The turn towards the consumption of locally produced goods is a perfect reflection of this: whereas local production leads to freshness and the procedural attention to detail afforded by smaller-scale operations (contributing to enhanced quality), consuming local goods also provides a (more) direct link to the point of production, allowing for direct consumer feedback, and relationship building with the producer (building trust/assurance).

As a direct example, I was watching the 'Brew Nation' podcast today and was amazed at the number of American craft brewers I was unfamiliar with. Even the segments of the show exploring Northern New York state showcased dozens of beers I'd never seen (I'm from Eastern/Southern Ontario...not too far away). I lived in Ottawa (where beer sale is controlled and limited to two retailers...and on-site at breweries) for a long time and remember the first time I stepped into a beer-friendly, high-scale grocery store in Quebec (literally minutes away but where beer sale is not nearly as regulated)...the number and range of beers was astounding! That is kind of an unfair comparison, as Quebec has a world-class beer culture, and is, in my opinion, one of those places that is almost its own little continent.

In any case, here in Toronto, tons of locally brewed beer is sold every day. The range has grown substantially in the few years that
I've been a beer drinker.

I really do think that the trend towards the local will continue as we've somehow soaked up a communal lesson about the consequences of poor construction, and separation from the point of production. You get too far from the heart, and you barely feel the pulse...

Many breweries are moving towards growing their own hops or grains, or at least sourcing these items locally. I think we're going to see breweries become identified regionally again, and playing a large part in the local food scene. It'll be great to see an America like pre-prohibition where beer came from your town or the town over. Not Milwaukee or St. Louis.

andysim said:

I like the way you think Skyforger.

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I like the way he sounds...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=altdP5cKAI4&feature=related]Skyforger - Thunderforge - YouTube[/ame]

andysim said:

I like the way you think Skyforger.

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Took the words right out of my mouth.


Which is a good thing, because now there's more room for beer.

stanzela: thanks for your comment. I found your thoughts on the socioeconomic forces driving the changes I forsee most interesting. And I do like me some Quebecois beers; let's not get rid of non-locals entirely!

headbanger - nice. I like this even better: