It’s a scary time to be a craft brewing pioneer. After growing at gangbusters, double digit rates for a decade, lean years have come for big craft.
Sales at pioneering brands, such as Boston Beer, Sierra Nevada, and New Belgium, are declining, flat, or barely growing. Younger drinkers increasingly view these legacy brands as stodgy or uncool.
The generational shift started with the age of extreme beer. A new, disruptive wave of young brewers, keen on brewing to their own tune, entered the marketplace with little care or concern for their elders. For a while, the big craft breweries played along, enjoying the new boost of enthusiasm in the industry. They invested in sour and barrel-aging programs, released their own funky beers, and generally reveled in the excitement, which accounted for only a small share of total craft sales.
This story is from the #128 (September 2017) edition of BeerAdvocate magazine.
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This story is from the #128 (September 2017) edition of BeerAdvocate magazine.
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