Nearly everyone attending the 2013 Craft Brewers Conference could tell you: The craft beer space has become more competitive than ever.
But amidst the noise about growth, there are trends — consumer, industry, cultural — that are helping to influence demand. Brewbound’s correspondents, in an effort to get beyond growth statistics and stories of sharp elbows in the retail space, sought to define the key trends affecting the industry.
Among CBC attendees, there are trend setters and trend watchers; Brewbound.com spoke with them about what they’re watching out for in 2013. A few of the more common responses included the emergence of session beer and continued style innovation as a means of product differentiation. You can watch the responses in our first in a series of video segments from last week’s event; among others, notable respondents included Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head, Paul Gatza of the Brewers Association and Steve Grossman of Sierra Nevada.