Beer Trends: What’s Hot and What’s Not
A bar/restaurant tap list and inventory management company, called Beerboard.com, recently released a 2016 report using data culled from their client base. With more than 50,000 taps being monitored, they have a pretty interesting view of what people are buying and drinking in the U.S. They compared 2015 data with 2016 data in the same months to see what sort of growth was happening in the industry. Although some of these numbers might have as much to do with expanded distribution as people’s taste in beers, let’s take a look at some of the trends we see…
IPAs Are Still Killing It
IPAs were the overall top seller in the craft beer category and #3 over all. This isn’t surprising based on what we see here in San Diego. What’s cool, is that the fastest growing IPA is the delicious, Fresh-Squeezed IPA from Deschutes Brewery in Oregon. They managed an 87.7% growth from this time last year with no end in sight. This fits in line with the explosion of wet-hopped IPAs we’ve seen in the industry this past year. In fact, we made our own foray into wet-hop territory with our recently released, Moist Def Wet Hop IPA. Apparently people are digging the fresh, dank taste of these wet-hopped beers while still comfortably exploring the beloved IPA category. Shout-out to Stone Brewing, who’s IPA saw the 4th largest growth within this category, jumping up 25.3%.
Pale Ales vs. Session IPAs
One surprising statistic that jumped out was that pale ales have fallen 22% from this time last year. This is interesting because pale ales are so close to IPAs and one would think that the two would enjoy the same spike in growth. Perhaps, though, this dip has less to do with people ordering less pale ales and more to do with how breweries are labeling their beers. Within the industry there are brewers that embrace the idea of session IPAs and others that say the name is a marketing gimmick. Some feel that session IPAs are really just pale ales that are rebranded to boost sales because, let’s face it, people love IPAs. It becomes up to each individual brewer as to how they want to define their beers. Here at TSB, we have both pale ales and session IPAs on tap.
The incredibly delicious Hoppy Birthday, from Alpine Beer Company, seems to be making movement on this very topic. It’s branded in most places (including their website) as a session IPA, but I have recently been seeing it in stores as a “pale ale.” It’s a great beer no matter how it’s labeled, but this illustrates the close relationship that pale ales and session IPAs have and how flexible some beer categories are.
People Love a Negra Modelo
The biggest growth over all was Negra Modelo, which jumped a whopping 700% in sales over last year. Now, Negra Modelo is from Grupo Modelo, a Mexican company that was bought out by AB InBev in 2012. In 2013, U.S. Justice Department filed an anti-trust suit against AB InBev which forced them to sell the U.S. distribution rights. They ended up selling to Constellation Brands, who owns Ballast Point, and the rest is history. This move should sound familiar because it’s exactly what is happening now with AB InBev’s takeover of SAB Miller. SAB Miller had to sell its stake in MillerCoors to Molsen Coors in order to get U.S. approval. What does all this mean for Negra Modelo? Basically, that Constellation Brands is having a killer year all around and people love a good Mexican beer.
For more reading on the topic of Constellation Brands and AB InBev’s merger with SAB Miller check out our recent blog posts on the topics:
The Purge: More Ballast Point Execs Flee
Anti-Trust Regulators Probe AB InBev’s Can