After a lot of research, typing, editing, second and third guessing myself, more typing, more editing, and tons of new gray hairs, we have finally reached the last segment of the 2025 State of the Industry report.
I know that so far this segment on the page has seemed like nothing but doom and gloom, which there is a lot of that going on in the industry at the moment. As with everything though, there is always a silver lining, and in this part of the article on the state of the industry, we are going to look to the future of the industry.
Contrary to popular belief, craft beer is not dead, the industry is just changing and evolving. The breweries that continue to change and evolve with the industry are the ones that are going to stay alive.
The days of a craft brewery becoming a major player in the American beer market like Bell’s and Founders, those days are long gone. There are just too many options already and not enough shelf space for new brands to make a big name for themselves. Too many breweries are sinking way too much money into their operation trying to replicate levels of success that will never be achieved again in this industry.
If you are looking to get into owning a brewery because you think you are going to retire and live on a private island somewhere because your brewery is going to be the greatest thing since sliced bread, I would probably look into a different industry to make your millions. This industry isn’t making millionaires anymore, you shouldn’t be in the industry if your only goal is to make money. You need to have a passion for the industry and be willing to put in very hard work just to grind out a living.
The future of the industry revolves around being engaged with your local community, brewing for the people that will make your business sustainable in the long run. Coming up with unique recipes that are constantly changing is going to be the key to drawing new customers in the door of your local brewery and keeping your local regulars coming back time and time again.
The days of breweries having “flagship” beers that are always on the taplist, is a sword that a lot of smaller breweries will die on. For every one customer that wants the IPA that has been on tap since the Civil War, you hear 10 other customers clamoring for something new and different. Evolving and changing with the times is the key to creating a sustainable future at your brewery. Don’t keep the same IPA on at all times, you can have an IPA on at all times, but you should be constantly rotating your IPAs. Create excitement among your clientele and give them a new reason to come visit your taproom.
Another key issue that I see amongst many breweries, they don’t establish a brand or an identity beyond the fact that they brew beer. All breweries need to have a story or a reason for the public to care and want to visit them. “We brew beer” is simply just not enough these days to make people want to visit your taproom. There needs to be a connection with the community that you serve beer to and you need to support the people that help tell the story of your brewery. You need to be engaged, tell your story through the beer that you create. If you brew absolutely fantastic beer but there is no story behind the beer, no one is going to care. If you are brewing beer simply for the financial gains that being successful in the industry can provide, you got into the wrong business and you are doomed to failure.
As far as things that breweries can do to enhance the consumer experience at the taproom to ensure a sustainable future. I walk into too many breweries these days, where the staff is severely under trained about the products they are serving. If I ask about your IPA, telling me it is hoppy does not give me enough information to tell me whether I want to drink it or not. Tell me what hops are in it, is it West Coast, NEIPA, Brut, Milkshake, etc.
Breweries as a whole need to get better about training their staff about the beer that they are serving. I don’t expect every bartender to be able to explain every aspect of the business to me while I sit at the bar, but if a bartender can’t tell me what hops are in the West Coast IPA, the owners and managers are setting up their employees and their business for failure. This is especially true in breweries that don’t have kitchens and the only product that they are realistically selling is beer. If this is you, your employees need to be very educated and informed on the products that you are selling. Under trained staff is more prevalent in the industry than you could ever possibly believe.
One more thing that happens way more often than it should at a brewery, I can’t tell you how many breweries that I have gone to over the years that have served me beer in a dirty or defective glass. This is ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE, I don’t care how awesome you claim your beer is, you lose points in my book. If I look at my glass rim and it has so much lipstick on the rim that it looks like a clown made out with my glass before you served it to me, you either didn’t pay enough attention before pouring the beer or you just don’t care enough. Both are unacceptable answers if your brewery being successful is something you are interested in.
Serving your beer in a beer clean glass (If you are in the industry in any capacity and don’t know what this term means, look it up immediately, your future might be at stake if you don’t), is an absolute necessity for a brewery to survive long-term. I am constantly checking my glasses at the brewery to make sure that they are beer clean, if it isn’t, no beer goes into it, the glass gets washed again. I treat every customer’s glass as though you are drinking with me at my home, I will never serve someone out of a glass that I wouldn’t drink out of myself. Beer is art, and pouring it in a dirty glass is like buying a 5 million dollar original Picasso and putting it in a 2 dollar frame you got at the clearance section of your local Wal-Mart.
If you are a brewery that is serving beer for off-site consumption in growlers, make sure that the growler that you are filling is clean and fit to be filled with beer when the customer brings it in. Too many places don’t check to make sure that the growler is clean before they fill it with their beer. If you aren’t checking to make sure that the growler is clean before you fill it, be prepared to lose a customer that brings in an unclean growler and blames the funny taste of their beer on the brewery itself. To be fair, if you aren’t checking to make sure growlers are clean before you fill them, then the brewery filling the growler is absolutely to blame for the beer tasting off.
At this point if you are checking the growler to make sure it is clean, and it is not, clean it out before you fill it. If it is beyond the point of cleaning out, take the time to teach your customer how to properly clean a growler after they consumed it. Then explain to them why you can’t fill it. Most customers do not know proper techniques to cleaning a growler and most will be grateful that you explained the process to them. This also shows the customer that you are dedicated to the concept of making sure that your beer tastes proper at all times.
Your beer is what you are selling in a brewery, it is the star of the show, make no mistake about that fact. When you can’t present your beer in an appealing fashion whether it is being able to answer questions about it, pouring it in a dirty/defective glass or allowing it to leave your brewery in vessel that is not properly cleaned, all of these atrocities lead me to believe that you only care about money and don’t care about your product. If you don’t care enough about your beer to make sure that it is served properly at ALL TIMES, then why should I care about visiting your brewery or your product? Focusing on quality control at all times in the world of craft beer is absolutely essential if you want to have any chance at being successful in the industry nowadays.
There are plenty of breweries that do all of these things well and trust me, 95% of those breweries will be around to keep serving their delicious concoctions for years to come. There will be a few that are just mismanaged or opened up in areas where there is little to no demand for craft beer and they will fall by the wayside as a result. In retrospect though, there are a lot of breweries that aren’t doing these simple steps that should be of the utmost importance to anyone trying to operate a sustainable business model these days. 95% of the breweries that aren’t paying attention to the quality control issues outlined above are going to end up dying a slow and painful death. The quality of your beer and how you serve it is absolutely paramount to operating a brewery nowadays.
As we are getting towards the end of the State of the Industry article, I will touch back on the idea that craft beer is not dead. The market is shifting and adjusting itself to make the industry we all know and love a lot stronger in the long run. In order to do that though, there absolutely has to be some casualties. Most of the closings will be warranted, there will be a few that are head scratchers.
All of what we are seeing at the moment is going to ensure that the craft beer industry continues chugging along into the future and becomes sustainable in the long run. One thing that people have to keep in mind, the craft beer industry in the United States is still relatively young. Even though it is still young, it is no longer the cute newborn baby that everyone loves, adores and can do no wrong. It has become the pimple-faced, moody teenager that still hasn’t quite figured out its place in the world. These trying times in the industry will help mold that teenager into the stable, battle-tested adult that we want to become in the future.
To conclude this article I will encourage everyone as always to drink local, our industry needs it now more than ever. I also encourage you to have your voices heard at your local breweries. Make suggestions to help your favorite watering holes stay afloat during these trying times, without your feedback and input, the industry would not have made it as far as we have today. The consumers are the backbone of this wonderful industry that we have created over the years. Let’s make 2025 as awesome as we possibly can for the brewing industry in Michigan and across the United States. Cheers!
#cheers #beer #beerlovers #brewery #michiganbeer #drinklocal #stateoftheindustry #craftbeer #brewerylife
0 Comments