Brewbound Podcast: Who is the Craft Beer Drinker in 2023?

[00:00:00] Zoe Licata: Who is the craft drinker in 2023? We'll discuss next on The Brewbound Podcast. Hello and welcome to The Brewbound Podcast. I'm your host, Justin Kendall, and I'm joined by my co-host, Zoe Licata. Zoe, how was your 4th of July? It was nice and relaxing, as nice as a rainy Fourth of July in Boston can be. A well-needed break. It was everything that my Fourth of July was not. Probably. I apparently live in a war zone because eight nights of explosions and we are only halfway through. Yeah, our fireworks were very subdued this year. Like there wasn't even a lot of illegal activity going on this year because it was just rainy and cloudy. You couldn't really see anything. So it kind of kept everyone at bay. It is not rainy and cloudy here. Well, it is cloudy now, but it's probably mostly just haze from the smoke of just commercial grade explosives. You can buy pretty much anything you want. things are just rocking in my neighborhood and I'm sure everybody's stone sober while they're doing this. Oh, definitely. Yeah. Well, we'll get into some of that data hopefully in the next week or so. But first, We're coming to Boston. We're going to be there for our BrewTalks meetup on Wednesday, July 12th. We've got three conversations or so. Tickets are available now The Brewbound.com. We're going to network. We're going to drink beers. We're going to talk beer business. And what all do we have going on, Zoe? We have a lot of conversations going on. We'll kick off the day with a chat with Adam Romanow from Castle Island Brewing, who's going to talk about what the Guild is up to. Of course, the event also supports the Guild, so we like to check in and see where everyone's money is going towards. So Justin will be chatting quickly with Adam for that. On our Hazy IPA What's Next panel, we're gonna have Kimberly Galinsky from Warm Town Brewery, Naveen Pawar from Mighty Squirrel, Megan Parisi from the Samuel Adams Downtown Boston Taproom, and Dino Funari from Vitamin C Brewing. And then on the State of the Industry panel, we'll talk with Dave Williams from Bump Williams Consulting, Sam Calagione from Dogfish Head, Kristen Burke from Burke Distributing, and Andrea Starr from Total Wine. Pretty nice two panels, if we do say so ourselves. So come out, join us there, drink some beer, support the guild, network. It's a real fun time. I like it. And I'm biased because I think Boston's the best. So it's going to be a good time. It's an easy travel day for you. I will be flying through Detroit and then landing in Boston, but I'll hopefully make it this year again. You made it last year by the skin of your teeth, so as long as you can do that, I think we're okay. a real planes, trains and automobiles moment for myself there. But let's get into some of the news of the week. And it really starts with Bart Watson, the chief economist of the Brewers Association. He's shared the Brewers Association survey with the Harris Poll and really diving into who the craft beer drinker is in 2023. Who are they, Zoe? They are conscious of where their money is going in terms of companies and what they support. They are focused on flavor and freshness. They care about ABV if they're on the younger end of the spectrum. That's kind of the key highlights there. Yeah. And local, not so important anymore. You got to be more than, you know, in the zip code. Yeah, Bart brought up, you know, millennials were kind of the ones that really drove the importance of buying local. Remember all those stickers that everyone had everywhere back in, I don't know, 2010 or something when that first really started. But the next generation coming up is more concerned about, you know, where their money is going. And if they know that sometimes companies just because they're local doesn't mean that they might support causes they want or just because they're big national brand doesn't mean that they are totally corrupt and aren't supporting some causes too. So yeah, you don't have to be in the zip code to get their dollars anymore. And this consumer is drinking a lot of different things too. Oh yeah, totally, yeah. The word that the BART loves is omnibibulous, just because we're trying to modernize the way we talk about people's drinking habits. But I mean, this survey is only of craft drinkers, so those are people who drink craft at least a few times a year. And they are all also drinking a bunch of other Bevelle products frequently throughout the year. whether that's other types of beer products or that's spirits and wine products, F&Bs, hard seltzers, RTDs, all of those are pretty popular and being drank by more than half of these craft beer drinkers. So you know that you're kind of competing with all of those categories and segments as well when you are a craft producer. And there's a new equilibrium here too, because, and this is for the first time since at least 2015, an equal number of craft beer drinkers surveyed said they were drinking more craft beer in 2023 as the amount of people who said that they were drinking less. Is that right? Did I get that right? Yeah, that's correct. And that, of course, this doesn't factor in people who have left the segment entirely. So for all we know, this could lean more towards people who are just drinking less because they're not drinking any at all. But yeah, the ones who are still drinking craft, it's an equal amount, are drinking more as there are that are drinking less. And that's just looking on the past trends shows that there are more saying they're drinking less and less saying they're drinking more. Yeah, first time since at least since 2015 when they started doing Harris Poll. Wild. Anything else on this that we need to hit that we didn't really cover? I mean, the big thing that Bart pointed out to when looking at just everything in this survey is, hey, look at those younger consumers, the millennials and the legal drinking age Gen Z, because they are going to be your majority craft consumers going forward. They're moving into the age range where they spend the most money on beverage, alcohol in general. So whatever trends are happening now with those younger age demographics are going to continue to be important or even more important moving forward. And women. And women who are spending the most on beverage alcohol and who Kraft has really under-indexed with. You can read all about that The Brewbound.com. Become an insider to check that out. Let's get into some other headlines and just how psychotic I am. And that's Firestone Walker has hired Tony Amaral from Lagunitas to lead its sales. He's the chief sales officer. We're going to be at Firestone Walker. And this is why I say I'm psychotic. If you Friday news dump on me, I will report it. Basically, Justin has a terrible work-life balance. And if you put news out there, he will also publish it at 11 p.m. Eastern on a Friday, holiday Friday. It was 10 p.m. in the central time zone. So much better. Clearly, I was writing before that. So yes, big change there. Big hire for Firestone Walker. Tony was at Lagunitas for around seven years or so. He's coming into a smaller operation in Firestone Walker. You know, Lagunitas had been around that one million barrel mark for a long time. They've dipped below that the last couple of years. Firestone Walker is in that, I think, 500,000 barrel range. And number one beer there isn't an IPA. It's 805. So kind of a lifestyle beer. So it'll be interesting to see how he handles that. Yeah, it seems to be another instance where, you know, this kind of craft beer brand that was doing really well for a while is trying to shake things up a little bit, get new life. I mean, they've had some declines across the board, so it'll be interesting to see what their next chapter is and how he might help them get there. And it'll be interesting to see what Loganitis does from here. You know, who sort of fills that role that Tony's leaving behind. So anyway, you can read that The Brewbound.com. There's also, we've got a story up on Monster's proposed deal for Bang, the Constellation Q1 earnings report, and a check-in with Artisanal Brewing Ventures. I spoke with John Coleman over there, and there's a whole lot of other stuff. And we got a new newsletter. Yeah, if you are really late to the game and haven't noticed yet, we have been putting out a new version of our newsletter. We have both an insider version and a non-insider version, but we're trying to get more news bits in there. If you're an insider, you're going to get access to a bunch of different news stories that aren't necessarily on the website, but we want to include some news items that we can't cover in full stories yet. So there are little snippets like Today's newsletter insiders got a look at ghost brewing filed for bankruptcy. So those kinds of stories are available. And we really, really would like to hear feedback on what you like, what you don't like about this newsletter, because we're still playing around with it. And it can still change and morph as we go. We want to be the most useful resource to you as we can be. Yeah, if you haven't clicked open of late and you're like, oh, you know, The Brewbound newsletter, I know that it's a whole different experience now. So don't sleep on it. 100%. So let's play a round of Another Round having out. And this weekend, I was just trying to enjoy some professional wrestling and not think about work and which brand should pop up. But Bud Light. This is an in-program promotion. So there was a Bud Light toast after the Money in the Bank ladder match. There were replays. Every replay was a Bud Light replay. There's a sponsorship leading up to SummerSlam, which is the big summer event for WWE. Now, I have consumed 40 plus years of WWE programming, and I don't ever remember Bud Light really jumping in in this way. And they really haven't had to jump in in this way, but we know why they're jumping in in this way. So this is part of their big summer promotions. You know, just one little part of it. We've got a new ad with Travis Kelsey of the Kansas City Chiefs that just hit this weekend. So Zoe, this is my long winded way of saying, are you buying Another Round of Bud Light's Media Blitz or are you Tabbing Out on it? I am Tabbing Out and My first reaction is a very Gen Z response to just say, that's really embarrassing. And that's just because you can tell that they're overcompensating a lot and trying to get their image back in order with the consumers that have left, leaning a bit more towards those kind of stereotypical beard occasions and images, like you could see in the latest Travis Kelce ad. It just feels like they're scrambling and they're trying to throw everything out there to bring people back in and it feels embarrassing. It feels like everyone can recognize that they're doing that and it's hard to see how that can have a positive impact on them. I understand why they're doing it and I don't know really what alternative they have, but I don't see it having a significant positive impact. Yeah, I'm torn on this because on the one hand, I can see some of their wholesaler partners being like, they're doing something, you know, they're getting out there and they're trying to be the Bud Light that they were 10, 15 years ago. On the other hand, to quote Super Troopers, desperation is a stinky cologne. And it really feels like they're in a desperate moment. It's not just one ad, you know, it's two ads, it's NFL, it's WWE, you know, it's country music, it's all these different things. The Bud Light Knight has been resurrected. He's back from the dead, you know, in quoting John Wick. And everything they do, they end up getting killed for, too, in the court of public opinion. They end up getting ratioed or whatever. There are hundreds, probably more than that, memes out there. Everything gets memed. Everything gets YouTube videoed. Everything gets shouted down at this point. I don't know what the answer is that would really help here, because it's like a little bit of overkill mixed with You know, should you just chill for a bit and let this maybe die out? I don't know. I understand that wholesalers and other interested parties want action and they want something to happen, but also it feels like you need to have the dust settle a little bit. I mean, if you look at some of the entire comment section basically on Twitter responding to the Bud Light return, I mean, look at it with caution because there are some not so great responses, but most of them are making fun of Bud Light. just saying awful things. But it's still a meme at this point. It's still something that people are going to make fun of anything that they do. So the more content they put out there, the more content that they give other people to twist and turn around and make more fun of the brand. And like I said, the wholesaler partners, they want action. I'm sure retailers want some action too, and I'm sure a lot of them are, and I think Bump Williams Consulting has even said as much, that some of those retailers are doing something that they haven't done, which is they're considering a summer reset to sort of adjust for the lack of movement, the lack of velocity here. So I don't know what the answer is, but You know, if every move you make is being met with derision, I'm not sure that that's the right move. Right, and they're also going to, intentionally or not, turn off the people who may not have been involved in the boycott, who might've been maybe on the other side of that, where they are leaning heavily back into these certain stereotypes and people are gonna be annoyed by it, they're gonna be turned off by it. This also follows Dylan Mulvaney finally speaking out about everything and calling out the brand for never reaching out to her. what she has said is that they have not reached out to her. And she has literally felt in danger because of everything that's happened. So it's just continues to be Bud Light is getting negative responses from all sides of everything. Yeah. Well, with that, let's close this out. That's our show for this week. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks to our one man audio team, Joe. And thanks to all you for listening. We'll be back next week.