Thanks for posting this. Good read for sure.
There is a business cycle, and always has been. There are no exemptions for malted beverages. It's not a question of IF the craft beer market will collapse, only WHEN.
Anyone who somehow believes that the craft beer market can go on expanding the way it has for the past decade needs to read into the history of the stock market prior to 1929. Or the denouement of the dot-com boom of the '90s. Or the criminally facilitated real estate boom that collapsed in '08, leaving our present economy moribund. Or.....
It's going to take a lot more than "I can cite the three most famous historical bubbles, therefore any economic boom is a bubble that will burst" to prove your point here. That logic is pretty flawed.
That being said, there is something to be concerned about here, but I'm not sure that the superlatives being thrown about are quite accurate. A "bubble" leading to a "collapse" implies a rapid drop in industry-wide demand and/or a massive influx of capital attempting to claim its share of future revenue that doesn't exist.
As long as demand for beer and craft beer doesn't collapse quickly, and as long as you don't have massive, huge investment that's being promised a huge return on investment that is no longer possible in a crowded market, you don't see a true "bubble/bust" scenario.
The article itself states that breweries are under-capitalized. This means you have people getting into the industry on shoestring budgets and/or leveraging themselves to the hilt, who need to see immediate success and widespread growth to stick.
Once such a market gets crowded, that becomes impossible, and you see a relatively-quick transformation where many breweries disappear, and you're left with the ones who are absurdly-capitalized, and/or have carved out a reasonable market share. I also think that becomes a boon for some smaller (nano-ish?) breweries who managed to open without over-leveraging and over-extending themselves, which may become an interesting niche. Shrug.