Gallons Brewed History + Updates needed

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Zenmeister

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I made my annual post to the " How many gallons brewed in..." thread today. For the heck of it, I decided to go back and see how we did versus years past. I searched by title, but could only find threads going back to 2019, and it's a pretty drastic drop off in production. High year was 2019 at 11,492 gallons brewed. As of the time I am posting this, we are at 4597 gallons brewed, over a thousand gallons fewer than last years final tally. So, my only guess is we are either brewing less, or we are just not reporting what we brew.

C'mon guys, let's post your brews and see if we can at least catch up to last year!!!

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The downward trend is not really shocking, with homebrew shops closing left and right over the last few years, AHA memberships dropping like flies etc...the hobby is definitely on a downward spiral. My club had 30 plus members before Covid...we have maybe 9 now, but only 5 that show up for every single meeting. Even some long time beer comps are starting to go the way of the Dodo bird. What would be interesting is to see the number of users of this site over the years too, has it dropped drastically also?
 
Also, traditional online internet forums like these have been dying for a long time now. All of my other hobbies, cars, coffee roasting, biking, etc, it's all Facebook and Reddit for the most part.
 
These "how many gallons brewed" threads are kind of at the mercy of members remembering to post. When I see 10k gallons for a year I wonder how many HBTers simply haven't posted.

But the above numbers do seem to track the downward trend of homebrewing.
 
Well, honestly for me you can add 10 more gallons. I actually quit posting or even replying to threads because I kept getting the messages to join and contribute. I don't have a job right now (which I have repeatedly stated in replies to those messages) so I'm not really spending any money I don't need to. I started feeling guilty that I couldn't contribute any money so I just stopped all activity (except for reading). I wonder how many others stopped announcing because they also can't contribute?

I felt because I use the forum I should contribute. But since I can't I probably shouldn't use it either. 😕
 
2016 the total was around 25K.

There was a 2018 article/survey by the AHA that had the average homebrewer at about 43gals a years back then.

I see a few people thinking the totals in "how many gallons" are personal totals and questioning how brewers can brew thousands of gallon per year. Maybe there are lot more that feel way and are intimidated to add their mere 40gals a years. ;)
 
it's a pretty drastic drop off in production.
meh.

In the hobbies that I follow, I can always find a core group of people that will sustain / 'evolve' the hobby through the decades. For example ..

if amateur /1/ home brewing of beer is "dead", then amateur astronomy died decades ago.

And yet,

... wait for it ...

people still enjoy viewing stars at night.

Some enjoy building their own telescopes to view the stars.

Some enjoy viewing the night sky with 50 year old 7x35 binoculars.

An yet, they have something in common ...

... wait for it ...

enjoying viewing the stars.



/1/ Amatuer (noun): One who engages in an art, science, study, or athletic activity as a pastime rather than as a profession
 
I don't think the OP (or anyone else) was questioning the continued existence of home brewing.
They're just noting the evident precipitous decline of home brewing...

Cheers!
 
I don't think the OP (or anyone else) was questioning the continued existence of home brewing.
They're just noting the evident precipitous decline of home brewing...
Exactly! People will always enjoy beer, and many people will still like to make beer, no matter the decline.

I made 595 litres of Homebrew in 2024 which is 157 US Gallons.
Did you add it to the 2024 totals?
 
Its worth noting too that forums peaked in popularity more than a couple years ago with the rise of general social media sites.
 
I don't think the decrease in HBT participation levels vs the growth of popular social media sites has any correlation. The peak HBT participation was at least 12 years ago...

Cheers!
 
That seems to fit with stuff I'm reading on the decline of forums in general and would be right about the time Facebook was really taking off. Facebook added groups in 2010, took a few years for that to really take off IIRC.

I used to be on a bunch of forums for different hobbies. This is the only one I still use. Dropping in on a few this morning, none are what they used to be.

Would be interesting to compare the gallons vs visits. Are people just not posting in the gallons brewed? I know I rarely do. Also my production last year was way down vs the previous years but more related to knee surgery in the summer and a lot of travel in the fall. And my last 2 batches got dumped due to sitting too long on hops from the travel.
 
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