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Is Craft Beer Dying?
35 Plays1 year ago
Welcome to another bonus episode of LHOHP! Today, I discuss the state of craft beer in 2024. Is it dying? Or did the market already correct itself? Either way, join me as I ramble on about the glory days of chasing whales and getting drunk at line shares while I sip on my Corona.
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Transcript
Is Craft Beer Dying?
00:00:01
littlehopsofhorrors
is craft beer dying. On this bonus episode of Little Hops a Horse podcast, we're going to cover some thoughts. ah No statistics today on any of this stuff, so you're just going to have to take my word for it because statistics are for nerds.
00:00:17
littlehopsofhorrors
Thanks, Homer. Anyway, ah yeah, let's ah let's save the rest of the stuff for the episode. So without further ado, here we go.
Nostalgia for Craft Beer
00:00:36
littlehopsofhorrors
Thanks, Jack. Welcome back to the Little Hops of Horrors podcast. I'm John, your host as always. Thank you again for tuning in. This is a little different episode. If you are a horror fan, you're going to take a backseat to this one. ah You guys have had the main main episodes for you know a long time. this is for the beer nerds okay this episode is just for the beer nerds and ah you know what's what's happened to our beloved craft beer is is this is this dying was this just a fad um i did look up some statistics but i didn't feel like copying them
00:01:07
littlehopsofhorrors
and really researching them any more than I already had so we're just gonna kind of you're gonna have to take my word for it that's just uh that's just what it is uh and if you don't like it go look up yourself that's uh that's your job not mine um but i've been drinking uh this stuff for you know almost 20 years now and uh i mean that's how fucking old i am uh but at its peak uh this was this was a lot of fun and and i would say that this was right ah right before the pandemic this was peak craft beer right like 2018 2019 like those years uh 2017 you know just those years before the world got fucking crazy but there was so much demand and there was demand for more right more styles new beers hazy ipas fruited sours barrel aged anything fucking
Beer Nerd Culture
00:01:54
littlehopsofhorrors
pastry stouts like those were the hype beers right these are the things that people would
00:01:59
littlehopsofhorrors
you know rush to go try to get a you know a four-pack of a bottle of whatever it was an online sale you had to make accounts and friends in different cities and states and all across the world you know just to try to get your hands on a bottle all so you could just put it on this app called untapped and say you had it I could go do that right now. I could literally go and check in every single fucking whale that has ever existed and just say that I did it. But, you know, and and but no one's gonna question you. You can just be like, dude, I had, you know, double barrel KBBS and
00:02:35
littlehopsofhorrors
Someone would be like, oh, bro, me too. Like, wasn't it fucking great? Like, yep, it was awesome. What would you like about it? Because it was just really good. I don't remember. We were drinking a lot that night. Oh, dude, me too. So, like, people would spend, myself included, like hundreds or thousands of dollars just for a check-in. That's what this all boiled down to. Untapped like totally changed the game on all of this stuff. That is why you saw an increase in flights right at local breweries. Don't order a flight. Don't be a dickhead. right Just get a fucking beer. Get a half pour of something because a lot of breweries will give you a half pour.
00:03:11
littlehopsofhorrors
ah But you be an adult, right? it's It's beer. If you're at a brewery to try something, just just go for it. Don't ask to try 20 different things and hold up the fucking line or ask to try 20 different things and then get a flight because I i guarantee that that bartender hates your fucking guts. Anyway. um But, you know, us as beer nerds, we we were very pretentious, right? We would look down on anybody that that didn't go out of the way to chase the we weren't like some kind of weird badge of honor, right? Like we would just, you know, ah I
Shift to Accessible Brands
00:03:43
littlehopsofhorrors
was a dancing them, you know, a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, I got a four pack of blah black clouds.
00:03:48
littlehopsofhorrors
Yeah, I know, I know it's sold out in like 10 seconds, whatever it was, you know, it's just, you know, and you try to like, then you only drank those beers with those people, right? And, and that sucks, right? Because beers, beer brings people together, you can, it's it's a universal language. And it should be, but you know, this corona that I'm drinking right now, um if I had told myself in 2018, 2019, that your fridge is going to consist of um cheap macros, right? You're gonna be having PBRs and Miller High Life and Corona or Coors Bank with our hams. That's gonna be in your fridge. Not crazy double hazy IPAs and barrel-aged shouts. I have some of that stuff too. But like, that's all I drank was this stuff. And I know a lot of my friends, that's all we did. And then you would just build these these sellers, right? Hundreds of bottles.
00:04:41
littlehopsofhorrors
of Stuff and you would buy three or four of these bottles just that you could have this day right that that never came Where you could just I want to try this vintage. I want to try all these beers um One year apart from each other or whatever it is. I'm gonna try this beer this year ah next to last year's version whatever it was and that never happened right like that that stuff just It just didn't, it didn't happen. These, these, these fictional like bottle shares, they just fell apart so quickly. These little groups, I mean, they were fun. I had a bunch of them. We used to have them once a, you know, once a month, once a once every couple of weeks sometimes.
00:05:22
littlehopsofhorrors
um once a week at times and trying to like constantly chase down something cool and worth sharing with your buddies got to be exhausting right let alone expensive ah because some places wouldn't you know they not some places but some people wouldn't even drink with you unless you had something really fucking cool and And I'm guilty of that. like We would have these shares where you would have a $100 minimum. You had to have a beer that was worth at least $100 to do this. And then on top of that, we would all go in on something really big. you know This two, three, $400 bottle, whatever it was. So you bring this $100 bottle, and then you bring in $50 cash, whatever it is, and we would go get something else. So we could all share it together. And this is all for like three or four ounces of something.
00:06:09
littlehopsofhorrors
That's how stupid we were. And I still have fun with this. Do not
Craft Beer Decline and Economics
00:06:13
littlehopsofhorrors
get me wrong. I love having bottle shares of and and trying new stuff and everything. But honestly, I mean, I've had like 6,500 different beers and I'm gonna tell you that very few cut through anymore. They're fun to drink now, they're delicious, but i my days of chasing things are long gone. The last beer I chased was the one that had the name of my son. and you know it's Whenever the next kid comes along, whenever we name that, he or she, you know I'll try to get a bottle of that if if it aligns that way.
00:06:46
littlehopsofhorrors
um but you know
00:06:51
littlehopsofhorrors
this is done and the numbers are are saying as such that you know this these these the days of us chasing beers are over craft beer is on a decline for the second year in a row right and and that was a real statistic i did look it up like i said i don't have the article on me right now so you know you're gonna have to forgive me but um You know you have breweries like sigh project that are still pumping out crazy shit, and dude I remember when like we would have
00:07:21
littlehopsofhorrors
You had to have somebody that lived in St. Louis to go get this beer like for you. No, you can do that now. yeah They allow proxies, but you'd have to buy it off of somebody out there for like five, $600. And now, I mean, that was like a cheap one. It was like a BBT. Some of these other ones are going for like 1200 bucks for like a whole set. It's like, get the fuck out of here, man. Beers are just not worth like some people's mortgage payments. Like that's not my mortgage payment. It's far less than that. um But it's, I need a sip of beer.
00:07:57
littlehopsofhorrors
But beer's down. you know It's just the interest is down. like There were people that literally made careers out of mewling beers. right like they They'd show up to Treehouse with SUVs full of, well, empty, and then leave full of you know these these cases of haze and ah green and whatever other you know dumbass ones that they had for a long time. And then they would flip these for $10 a can. right So they would just make money off of mixing and matching and stuff and and shipping shit out for $55 because you had to cover shipping too.
Brewing Industry Challenges
00:08:34
littlehopsofhorrors
So not always a bargain. Prices have come down since then. It's still super pricey in my opinion. um But you know it's ah it's a chance to try some cool stuff if you haven't done it. and You want to do it, I understand. i'm not goingnna
00:08:47
littlehopsofhorrors
deter you from doing stuff but you know we live in an area where we have a lot of good stuff that's comparable to that and that's something you learn along your journey right you can go to the Applebee's in a different city it's probably going to be similar to the Applebee's here I don't eat Applebee's but you get my point um But I mean, it's just, it's crazy to watch how this has changed over the past few years. you know Gone are the days of hiring homeless people or bringing family and friends you know so they can add to their fucking allotments, you know, because breweries had, you can only get two of these bottles. Okay, well, I have fucking five people with me, so now I have 12 bottles, sweet. And then they'd flip that beer for 10 times what they paid for it, more or less. But you know those days, again, are done.
00:09:34
littlehopsofhorrors
Um, openings are a fraction of what they were a few years ago. Closings are similar to what they were last year. And just because you can make, you know, beer doesn't mean you should open a brewery. You need to have a good product these days. Like, especially now, more than ever. You need to have a good location. There's a lot of other factors here. And no growth for a second consecutive year um is is kind of a red flag. and And it was reported that most brewers are essentially producing half of what they're able to.
Impact of Remote Work on Beer Sales
00:10:03
littlehopsofhorrors
And um it's not a lucrative industry. I know a lot of, you know, I was in it for a brief time. It doesn't pay that well. There's, a you know, some cool perks. You get a lot of free beer.
00:10:13
littlehopsofhorrors
ah And a lot of good beer, typically. But you get to go to these cool events and be a part of, you know, it's fun, you know, it's it's more something you do for love than you do for a roof over your head. But, you know, we talked about this when I when I worked at a brewery. And, you know, we we kind of were just batting around that there wasn't really any single one factor at play here. It felt like there was a lot of factors here and you know people pre-pandemic worked downtown. They worked in an office building and they'd pass a bar on their way home or a craft beer bar or a brewery whatever it was um and that that spontaneous beer after work
00:10:52
littlehopsofhorrors
doesn't happen as often anymore it's a little more planned there's a lot more folks you know that that work from home primarily or they have like a hybrid role and maybe it was just maybe it was just like you know a five or six year period um that was just like us idiots we had our fun of you know standing in lines or you know begging our significant others to come with us so we could buy extra beers or maybe it was just like that that that period in time you know and maybe we've we've moved on and we have families now and you know there's just like less time to do all that stuff maybe that's what it is but you know and and we'll we'll cover some more stuff at at the end of the uh the end of this episode and everything because i do have some more thoughts on it but you know there was a time when beer would sell out around here in less than 10 seconds
00:11:41
littlehopsofhorrors
literally less than 10 seconds. that in in actually It was black clouds, you know, any of them really, especially when they started doing barrel age ones, like they would be gone and then, you know, dancing and we'd get this huge backlash, you know, from locals saying, I can't believe you didn't have enough for everybody here. And it was just, you can't make everybody happy. Well, now you can go down and get that beer right now. that bureau last, you know, weeks on their shelf online. They're begging for people to go back to those days and for some reason it's just not. Maybe it's inflation, maybe things got more expensive, you know, just cost of living went up and everything. Maybe it's all of that stuff.
00:12:17
littlehopsofhorrors
But I'm seeing less and less new beer, so to speak. ah Breweries are becoming more cautious with their releases. Some are content with just hanging out in their local market. They're not looking to branch out as much anymore. It used to be a race to get your beer on the shelf for other people, especially like your direct competitors and in your market. um But there's a lot of good beer now, you know in Pittsburgh in particular that we have a lot of Really good stuff here and you have to you have to be on top of your game to survive um There's just too many good options that people have to choose from they don't have there's no we don't have a destination brewery right like I can go right down the road here and save myself a you know 45-minute round trip and and grab something comparable or I can go to Giant Eagle I know the supermarket or whatever and just grab a
00:13:06
littlehopsofhorrors
Grab whatever I want. I don't have to go to the brewery anymore. Distribution has hurt these breweries as well. you know So people for a long time wanted a new, new, new, new, new. and And now these new, new, new, new, new beers, you know they just kind of sit there. And people aren't as into the experimental stuff as they once were. And and for that, i don't I don't know. And I haven't talked to anybody um that has any idea on that either because I mean most of us beeriners we still like the same stuff and I don't know if it's just we don't want the stuff that's local anymore because it's easy to get ah so we just try to look elsewhere around the country that for the new cool thing I just don't have the time or energy to to chase that stuff anymore I just jump over it man I had I had my fun but there is hope I know we kind of talked a lot about it a lot about negatives so far but you know we're seeing these places start to evolve
00:14:00
littlehopsofhorrors
I had to take some liquid good refreshment there, but they're embracing their local markets um more than ever, and they're making their beer more accessible. um Personally, I'm looking for value now. like We have a kid, we have a house, so the beer budget isn't nearly what it was a few years ago. Like when I was basically a quote-unquote single guy as my you know now wife was at college and and everything like I had extra money
Breweries Adapting to Market Changes
00:14:24
littlehopsofhorrors
to spend and nobody would know why there was an extra four pack or two that you know ah made its way to the fridge. um You know but
00:14:33
littlehopsofhorrors
You know, I look for the $20 12 pack, $20 to $25 12 pack instead of a $19 four pack. and i And I didn't blink at that before. I used to think 18, 19 bucks was fine. Oh, that's no big deal. You know, and then you you drink two of those and fuck. Okay. I only have two beers left. Whereas if you do that with a 12 pack, I mean, do the math. It's just, you know, value. But there are some local places to Pittsburgh, like Cinderlands, they're taking advantage of this and offering their same product, which which I much prefer to prefer the local product over like the the regional guys or the national you know competitors, but because I think they do offer a better product.
00:15:10
littlehopsofhorrors
But it's only a few dollars more for like a 12 pack and I think that's brilliant and if if more local breweries got behind that I mean now we're talking but um You know, it's not easy to do to put your your product um At that same level that same prices, you know, like a national competitor. They just got more more weight behind them and everything so it kind of comes down to the local spots to like local like beer distributors or whatever to keep them out and just keep supporting the local guys as much as you can. But eventually, we're going to see this this bubble burst here. People are going to stop paying $25 for a four-pack of fruited juice or barrel age, whatever. It's just going to sit there. And eventually, you know i mean again, we've already covered that you know consumption is down and production is is way down. But
00:15:59
littlehopsofhorrors
um I don't see these these local dudes ever Putting a dent into the likes of like a Miller light a Coors light like those kinds of beers um I don't think that's ever gonna happen, but you know, it's nice to have them as a You know you go into the taproom and it's nice to have a pilsner or some other kind of crispy boy There's some kind of and anything instead of just a fruited sour hazy IPA whatever other bullshit, you know hyper beer I like to just have beer flavored beer sometimes and that's why we're drinking corona tonight
00:16:32
littlehopsofhorrors
But ultimately, I think there's just like another phase, you know, um I think the the beer and shot bars that like our parents had, you know, with like the darts and the smoking and all that other stuff, like I think they're like kind of a dying breed, unless they're, you know, nobody's opening them, right? um As they're well established in a community or something like that. But I think the demand for those are just are just down. you know I don't think people want to do that anymore. Our generation has, and the younger ones, they seem to have like a different taste. you know Breweries and distilleries and wineries have taken over local watering holes, and and it's not a shot at any of those shot in beer bars by any means. There are a lot of laws in place for a long time that prevented folks from opening things like craft breweries, like distilleries, like wineries.
Generational Shift in Beverage Preferences
00:17:19
littlehopsofhorrors
you know um That's why we we've seen such a like surge in the past, probably 10 years, on a lot of that stuff. But I think it put a ah ah dent in the craft beer stuff as well. And you know you have the AB InBevs of the world experimenting with other like malt beverages. you know They've spiked Mountain Dew now, spiked Monster, spiked Orange Juice, Arnold Palmer. That shit wasn't around 20 years ago. That shit wasn't around 10 years ago. like i remember there was like two seltzers there was like white claw and i think like truly those might be the only two that i've ever heard of now like everybody and their fucking mother has a seltzer out plus they have all these other things and you know like we had zima and fucking mike's hard lemonade and that both of them were uh immediate heartburn and they were awful but that's what we had to deal with so kids you know again thank us your elders for for getting out there and drinking all the shit so you guys can enjoy
00:18:14
littlehopsofhorrors
these wonderful beverages you now have at your disposal. You know, come come to think of that. um When I was working for the brewery, I did comment on how many seltzers that some of these places would have, and they said that that's like what the college kids want to drink. ah You know, they don't want to drink the cheap shitty beer anymore. they'll They'll go after seltzers They're using dad's credit card or mom's, you know, fucking trust say trust trust account. I don't know trust trust fund There we go. That's the word um You know, so it's just it's just different, you know us we were scraping together Fucking quarters and dollars just so we can get a fucking 30 rack of natty light It's crushing a parking lot one night, you know, like it's just times are times are different. I
00:19:00
littlehopsofhorrors
But ultimately, I mean, I think just there's more options coupled with, you know, general disinterest in this industry now. um I mean, it's undoubtedly affected it.
Craft Beer Market Correction
00:19:09
littlehopsofhorrors
I do believe that craft beer is here to stay. um I think we're just going to head towards a correction. We're going to see a lot more closings over the next couple of years. People that just can't weather this storm, they're not making the money that they thought they were going to do or they were projected to do. I think leaning more into the local stuff where they stop worrying about national and regional distribution and just focus on like taking care of the local area is probably what's going to be most sustainable because the days of us trying to you know drive across the country or talk to somebody to get us like a $24 four pack or $30.
00:19:43
littlehopsofhorrors
some of these beers are getting so expensive like secondary prices were a reason like they were a thing you'd get ah a four pack for 20 bucks or a bottle for 25 bucks and you'd flip it for double that or triple that sometimes you know if it was a bottle sometimes you know 10 times that if you were lucky and and now some of these you know some of these breweries like Toppling Goliath like ah a bottle of KPBS a 12 ounce bottle I don't know what it goes for now, but it was $100 at the brewery. Think of how fucking ballsy you have to be to charge somebody $100 for a 12-ounce bottle as a brewery. Like, come the fuck on. um But these breweries saw, you know, where this stuff was headed. ah They saw the secondary markets and a lot of people making a lot of money off of their beer.
00:20:40
littlehopsofhorrors
So they started jacking up their prices, and I can't help but wonder if that's, you know, maybe playing into it a little bit. Voodoo has ah has a compound up in Maidville, Pennsylvania, and they... ah You can have any any of their high-end beers that you want. I'm sure many of them have fallen off by now because beer doesn't usually get better ah after like a certain point. I think five years is my sweet spot. Anything after that, I'm kind of, I'm good. I don't need to try it. But they have secondary prices on their menu. You want a bottle of this black magic? It's gonna cost you 200 bucks. Excuse me, what?
00:21:20
littlehopsofhorrors
they have the audacity and people pay it that's just the thing just for they you know so they can have that tick on untapped um yeah i don't know ultimately like i said i don't think this is going anywhere i do think that uh there's going to be a big time correction i think we'll find that happy medium and i think as long as like the the local guys take care i mean stay local now um and focus on putting their product on the shelves, making it more accessible, ah and stop charging $20 for a four-pack. I think we start moving towards the 12-ounce $25 for a 12-pack or whatever it is.
Supporting Local Breweries
00:21:59
littlehopsofhorrors
You get you get there, and that price range, I think, i think will be okay. ah But that's about it. and you know this This was a little bit of a different episode. and I hope you guys didn't fucking hate it. um
00:22:09
littlehopsofhorrors
We want to do it for a while. So, you know fuck it We threw it out there and I'm not sure what's coming out next week because I'm not entirely sure when this is gonna drop But regardless, thank you for the support. I do appreciate it. Go out there tip your fucking bartenders go buy some beer from your local spot and Yeah, we'll catch you guys next week. Cheers