In a year when craft beer volumes declined for the first time in the modern craft era, drinker interest in craft beer did not abate, Brewers Association (BA) chief economist Bart Watson said during his presentation of the trade group’s annual consumer poll.
“Sales trend does not equal the demand trend,” he said. “Simply put, I think there’s a lot of good things that we see in the survey — that the fundamental demand for craft has remained strong through COVID, even if sales took a hit, if we saw that channel shift from on-trade and at-the-brewery sales to off-trade and package sales.”
The number of legal drinking age adults who drink craft beer has reached its highest point (44%, up 1% from 2019) since the BA began commissioning The Harris Poll to survey U.S. craft beer consumers in 2015. Of them, the number of people who say they drink craft beer weekly has also reached its zenith — 50%, an increase of 1% since 2019.
“Not only is the total pie of craft drinkers increasing, but according to this survey, at least within that people who drink craft, are shifting their balance of drinking toward more craft,” Watson said.
However, the gap between people who report drinking more craft and those who report drinking less is narrowing. A seven-point split separated those who reported drinking more and those who drank less, down from 9% in 2020 and 17% in 2019. Watson attributed this to craft beer drinkers straying from craft beer to other beverage alcohol categories.
“We continue to see craft drinkers who say that they’re drinking less craft, the No. 1 reason that they cite for drinking less craft is that they’re drinking more of other beverage alcohol,” he said.
Craft Drinkers Are ‘Omni-Biborous’
Nearly all (94%) of weekly craft beer drinkers say they drink from at least one other beverage alcohol category each week. The most frequent segment for non-craft consumption was non-craft domestic beer (69%), followed by wine (67%), imports (65%), spirits (62%), flavored malt beverages (54%), hard seltzer (52%) and hard cider (42%).
Craft is stealing the most share from other beer; 8.8% of consumers who said they’re drinking more craft beer said they’re doing so because they are drinking less non-craft, which is more than twice the rate of drinkers who said they are drinking less craft because they’re drinking non-craft (4.2%). Hard seltzer posted a similar ratio: 5.8% of respondents who are drinking more craft said it’s because they’re drinking less hard seltzer, while only 2.3% of respondents said they’re drinking less craft and more hard seltzer.
Wine is the largest benefactor of lost craft share, with 4.4% of respondents reporting drinking less craft and more wine; however, 5.4% of respondents said they are drinking more craft and less wine. Cannabis had a similarly close split, with 2.7% of respondents saying they’re drinking more craft and consuming less cannabis, and 2.5% saying they’re consuming more cannabis and less craft.
In the 2021 survey, the rate of weekly craft drinkers who reported also consuming hard seltzer weekly increased 2%, to 34%. Craft drinkers who also drink hard seltzer weekly nearly doubled from 2019-2020, increasing from 17% to 32%.
Meanwhile, the rate of weekly craft drinkers who reported also consuming wine declined by 2%, to 48%. The 50% rate of 2020 was wine’s peak since 2018, when 43% of regular craft drinkers reported also drinking wine weekly.
Why Do People Buy Craft
Asked why they continue to buy craft beer, drinkers’ top reason is still the beer itself.
“The No. 1 reason that people buy craft is still the beer — taste, flavor,” Watson said. “Every year we’ve done this, 95%+ of people have said, ‘That is a reason that I drink craft.’ There’s other variants of that too — freshness or aroma — that all score very, very highly.”
Some consumers said they purchase craft beer for what Watson dubbed its “value components” — that it’s local and independently owned. Recognition of the BA seal, the upside-down bottle insignia the BA allows its members to include on packaging and marketing materials to demonstrate their membership and independence, has increased 14%, to 68% among weekly craft drinkers. A majority of non-weekly craft drinkers (52%) also reported recognizing the seal.
ABV Bifurcation
Craft beer drinkers report that alcohol by volume (ABV) is an important attribute, but for different reasons.
“One thing we’ve seen pretty consistently in recent years is that both ends of the alcohol spectrum have grown in importance for consumers,” Watson said. “The number of people who say ‘High ABV is important to me’ and ‘Low ABV is important to me’ have both been growing and this year was no exception.”
Importance of both high and low ABVs increased in 2021 for both weekly and all craft drinkers. ABV in general is at least somewhat important to 72% of all craft drinkers and 82% of weekly craft drinkers. Nearly half (49%) of weekly craft consumers said ABV is “very important,” compared with 36% of all craft drinkers.
Watson urged craft brewers to consider the visibility of ABV on their packaging to catch the eye of conscious drinkers.
“We see across beverage alcohol now that leading products that are growing a lot also have consumer research like this and have figured out that that ABV attribute and making it easy and accessible to consumers is something that’s very important,” he said. “We can see that that’s very important to craft drinkers.”
Local Drives Increases Purchasing but Doesn’t Hurt Regional or National Brands
The survey found that local correlates very strongly with frequency. However, local does not lead to a decrease in sales of regional or national brands.
“Getting consumers excited about local is something that’s really good for the category generally,” he said. “As you think about your marketing and branding, there may be opportunities, not just to increase your sales personally with local, but to grow the category because there’s clearly a relationship here.”
Brewery Visits Remained Stable
Although consumers said their brewery visits remained stable year-over-year, Watson offered a caveat that “people misremember on surveys” and those visits were undoubtedly lower during the pandemic.
“I think it shows that people are still thinking about visiting breweries as much as they did and in general they don’t see themselves as having changed their patterns too much,” Watson said. “I think that’s a good thing in terms of getting back to breweries as things reopen this summer and as people get back to traveling.”
The survey also looked at why consumers say they visit breweries. The top three reasons were sampling, learning, and fresh beer.
Digging deeper, Watson said three groups stand out:
- People who are really about the beer experience;
- People interested in atmosphere/family friendly environment;
- People wanting tours and beer and food pairings.
Watson added that almost everyone surveyed was looking for knowledgeable staff.
The survey also found that the number of people who said they made a follow-up purchase after visiting a brewery has declined slightly over time.
Consumers Expect More On-Premise Visits Over Next 6 Months
Sixty percent of weekly craft drinkers say they expect to visit the on-premise channel more in the next six months; about half of them say they expect to visit breweries more.
“People didn’t stop going to breweries as much as they stopped going to bars and restaurants,” Watson said. “We expect a little more bounce back on the on-premise side.”
24% of Consumers Said They Bought More Packaged Beer To-Go Sales
Nearly a quarter of consumers surveyed said they bought more packaged beer to-go from breweries during the pandemic. Of those consumers, 15% said they’re likely to buy more packaged beer to-go, while 7% said their purchasing would remain about the same. Meanwhile, 34% of respondents said they bought the same amount of packaged beer, and 18% of those consumers said they’re likely to purchase about the same amount of packaged beer to-go.
“In general, people think they’re going to continue some of the to-go buying habits that they have developed during the pandemic,” Watson said.
Brands Purchased Per Month Holds Steady
Consumers said they purchased an average of 3.2 different craft brands a month in 2021, which was in line with 2020 (3.1 per month) and up from 2019 (2.9).
Opportunity Exists in All Flavors; ‘Tart’ is ‘Polarizing’
The survey found that consumers are increasingly interested in “crisp,” “juicy/hazy,” “fruity,” “dark,” “malty,” “hoppy,” “spicy” and “tart” flavors. However, among those, tart has proven to be “polarizing” for consumers aged 45 and up.
“Tart, you get a lot of people who say I’m much more interested in this, and you get a lot of people who say I’m much less interested in this,” Watson said. “There’s going to be opportunity everywhere and nobody can chase every trend.”
Juicy/hazy and fruity have both grown in recent years, and ranked higher with younger legal drinking age consumers, Watson added.
Looking at interest levels by race and ethnicity, Watson said the more he tried to analyze the data, the harder it was to “see clear differences” in the tastes of the 21- to 34-year-old groups.
“The preferences really aren’t that different,” he said, adding that it’s more about the environment brewers create and the brand they build than the flavors they offer.
“Focusing more on who you are as a company and welcoming everyone into your brewery is gonna be more important than the types of beer you’re offering,” he said.
Breaking the data out by gender, also found similar interest levels in styles. He added that the gender gap in craft also continues to narrow.
“Obviously it’s still pretty wide, but 64% male, 35% [female] this year, which is a slight improvement on 2020,” he said.
Compare that to 2015 when craft was 71% male and 29% female.
Newest LDA Consumers Interested in Mindful Drinking
Consumers continue to be increasingly interested in mindful drinking trends, such as lower calories, lower carbs and gluten free.These attributes, which have been popular among hard seltzer consumers, are increasingly important to craft consumers, Watson said.
In fact, the number of survey respondents who said they weren’t interested in mindful drinking continues to decline, dropping from 37% in 2019 to 24% in 2021. Now, two-thirds of consumers are saying these attributes are important to them, with the top attribute being “local ingredients,” followed by “organic.”
Weekly craft drinkers are more likely to say they’re interested in these trends.
“Three quarters of weekly craft drinkers say at least one of these mindful drinking trends is important to them,” Watson said.
Watson said Generation Z consumers are also interested in these trends and “it’s clear that these attributes are going to continue to grow in importance for the next generation.”
Watson also cautioned against assumptions, specifically on the interest in smaller formats (8 oz. cans) among older consumers. The survey found that 19.6% of 21- to 34-year-olds were actually the most interested in smaller formats, versus 35- to 55-year-olds (18.6%) and 55+ (10%).
Among those 21- to 34-year-old drinkers, men and women reported being interested in smaller formats nearly equally, with a slight lean to men.
82% of Consumers in Favor of USPS Shipping Alcohol
The survey also gauged consumers’ support for the United States Postal Service being granted shipping rights for alcoholic beverages, similar to private carriers UPS and FedEx.
82% of respondents said they either strongly support or somewhat support allowing the USPS to ship bev-alc products to consumers age 21 and up, while 18% either somewhat opposed or strongly opposed the change.
“We think this is sensible legislation that helps the Postal Service to raise revenue, and also hopefully opens up some new business models in conjunction with state shipping laws, which will also need to change to fully allow this,” Watson said.
Among the supporters of the change, parents strongly support the changes, while people without children were among those in opposition.
The National Beer Wholesalers Association has also vocally opposed changes to shipping laws.