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Have you stopped signing your official papers with 2017 yet? I still haven’t remembered to “switch the calendar” as they (used to) say. So by that reasoning, it’s not too late to offer my top booze predictions for 2018. Does this list cover everything that will trend this year? No. I’m leaving out nutritional labeling because I’ve already covered it and don’t have much more to say and augmented reality, which has hit the wine world, because I haven’t covered it and don’t have enough to say. But between those two extremes, you should have plenty to discuss around the water cooler, or, more likely, considering trend #7, the office beer station.
- We’ll drink better beer
According to BeerBoard, which monitors output from more than 50,000 North American draft lines, domestics still dominate but dipped below a plurality for the first time since probably anyone alive can remember. Consumption of your Buds, Millers and Coors of the world slipped to 49.59% of the market, a two-point decline that showed up directly as an increase to craft share (35.9%).
Imports stayed strong, though cider seems to have peaked (and rather quickly, I might add), losing 15% of sales between 2016 and 2017. Within craft, IPA just won’t go away. It grew 15% last year, and Brewers Association (BA) Chief Economist Bart Watson says the hoppy style will account for most of craft beer’s 5% growth in 2018.
We might chalk much of the ongoing IPA growth up to two newer sub-styles: Session IPAs and New England IPAs (NEIPA). The New England style has popped up all over the world, leading BA founder Charlie Papazian to note that his organization is considering adding it as the first official sub-category to American IPAs. As for session IPAs (“session” means low alcohol by volume in beer), Founders Brewing’s All Day IPA sparked a mammoth copycat movement when it introduced the first widely distributed low-alcohol IPA early this decade. Its 58% growth last year has been the main factor in the Michigan brewery’s eye-popping and industry-bucking sales last year.
The NEIPA craze may have some interesting influences and implications. Wheat beers, almost always sold unfiltered, moved up two spots last year to become the sixth most popular beer style in the States, according to BeerBoard. Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat, for example, sold 450% more last year than it did the previous. What’s the connection between wheat and NEIPA? Haze. Neither beer is clear, and we as a society can accept that now.
Craft Beer Business recently wrote, “While clarity was once seen as a chief sign of quality, brewers are increasingly marketing beers as unfiltered, communicating to drinkers that the beer is rawer and more flavorful and authentic.”
I don’t necessarily agree that unfiltered equals authentic but this is happening on the spirits side, too, where a few clear spirits are showing up intentionally hazy on shelves.
- We’ll drink more often at tasting rooms and satellite taprooms
Suppliers of raw materials are getting into the tasting room game as a way to raise the public’s understanding of the beermaking process and invite end-users, AKA drinkers, to ask brewers to use ingredients from their companies. Cases in point: Admiral Maltings in Alameda, CA, opened a tasting room Tuesday that overlooks its floor malting operation, and White Labs yeast lab added a restaurant to its Asheville location to expand on its beer-only tasting rooms in San Diego and Boulder, CO.
Most of the tasting room action, however, will happen offsite. From malls to airports to tourist districts, satellite taprooms are coming to a location near you. In states that allow it, breweries and, to a lesser extent, distilleries are opening up brick-and-mortar extensions of their brand everywhere they think they’ll find foot traffic. House Spirits Distillery, maker of Westward Whiskey, has a tasting room in a terminal at its home airport in Portland, OR, as does Rogue Ales and Spirits.
Some breweries, like California’s Figueroa Mountain Brewing, are choosing to base their business model on retail sales over distribution and are covering their territory by siting multiple taprooms within a few hours’ drive of one another. Others, like Brooklyn Brewery, Stone Brewing, BrewDog and Mikkeller, are spreading their concept of personally touching the consumer by setting up taproom networks in cities around the world.
Look for more to follow Green Flash Brewing's new model to site taprooms in under-served cities like Lincoln, NE. The Restaurant Business website says chefs are also bolstering this second- and third-tier city idea by opening eateries, including James Beard Award-winners, in Baltimore, Cleveland, St. Louis, St. Paul, Pittsburgh and Birmingham.
“They’re getting topspin from the revitalization of long-depressed neighborhoods, low rents, blossoming food cultures,” the magazine explains.
- We won’t buy drinks, we’ll buy experiences
As The NPD Group data research firm writes in a report about grocery trends, “It’s no longer enough to provide a purely transactional relationship with (customers). Retailers will need to examine if programs such as cooking classes, in-store bars, and grocerants, for example, will suit customers’ needs by bridging products with experiences to make a trip to their store unique.” The same thing is happening at bars. Patrons want memorable “experiences” to talk and Tweet about. In Philadelphia alone, one bar/restaurant lets patrons visit other worlds in its virtual reality room; a sports bar is opening with two escape rooms and an ice room (yes, it has an ice luge); and the local press reports that the former site of Yards Brewing is turning into a bar that boasts a slide and multiple ball pits. Playtime, anyone?
- We’ll spend more money
Beer volume sales are declining but beer dollar sales are increasing. How does that work? Drinkers across beer and spirits are drinking less but paying more for higher quality consumption. What does this mean? Instead of buying a 30-pack of Bud, they’ll buy a 12-pack of something more expensive. The tendency to switch to a higher price-point product is called “trading up” or “premiumization” and it shows no signs of stopping. It’s made domestic super premiums like Michelob Ultra en vogue again and it’s turned domestic beer drinkers into people who drink imports. According to IRI data from chain groceries and convenience stores, last year sales of: super premiums grew 9.2% by volume sales and 11.2% by dollar sales; imports grew 6.6% by volume sales while dollar sales increased 8.4%; craft grew 3.6% by volume and 5.5% in dollars.
- We’ll get high with a little help from our friends
It’s time to play that popular game, “Let’s Blame the Millennials.” The younger Millennial cohort drinks less alcohol than any generation below the Greatest one, and according to study after study, Millennials of all ages like to get high instead of drunk because they won’t get fat or necessarily spend as much money. With Craft Brewing Business reporting that the global commercial cannabis market was predicted to hit $7.7 billion last year then skyrocket 60% to $31.4 billion in 2021, this means at least two things: Alcohol sales will continue to dwindle, and alcohol companies will try to meet millennials where their market is. A few beers containing non-high-inducing CBD hemp extract already exist in states where pot is recreationally legal, and pot-laced non-alcoholic beverages are pouring into the market.
As for abstinence, VinePair reports that, “Seedlip, the world’s first non-alcoholic spirit, launched this year, and searches for ‘mocktails’ on Pinterest rose 160 percent.” Heineken released 0.0% near beer last year in Europe. Non-alcoholic beverages will be easier to find at bars, and not just served from a soda gun; and VinePair has identified fine dining spots starting to cater to this culture -- Atera, a Michelin-starred restaurant in New York City, offering a $105 “temperance pairing” for those who eschew wine, and Trois Mec in L.A. providing cheaper pairing menus with non-alcoholic options.
Finally, drinkers who don’t want to cut booze entirely are switching out traditional spirits in cocktails in favor of low-ABV alternatives like fortified wines. Craft Beer Business is calling for more premium players to fill out the offerings of what’s being called “Shim cocktails.”
- We’ll actually like our bartenders
Craft Beer Business sums this up better than I can: "2017 has been dominated by the color of the food and drink we consume, and the environments we drink it in. Why? The simplest and most obvious answer is social media. With most people permanently carrying a high-quality camera, and Instagram growing in both reach and influence, we’ve arguably never lived in a more visual culture. … If 2017 has proved anything, it’s that color has both power and social currency. The exact shade isn’t crucial; what is, is an understanding by brands that color is both an easy shortcut when it comes to reaching a desired consumer base, but that it will become ever-more central to ultimate success."
With snarkier-than-thou mixologists dying off like dinosaurs and tiki and even, gasp, flair bars, flaring up, color is back like a bad 80s haircut. Last week I was offered not one but two cocktails with blue curacao, which I suppose answers the question, “At least the color will be natural, right?”
- We’ll never leave the house
Buffalo Wild Wings is testing beer and wine delivery at 19 stores in California, adding to the ever-growing list of take-out fooderies that pack up booze with your Buffalo wings and pizza. As I’ve chronicled several times, alcohol delivery services of all kinds are making it harder to ever leave the house.
- We’ll witness closures, retraction and retrenchment
January was rough on old-guard breweries, three of which closed or went on the market within about a week of one another. The owners of Smuttynose Brewing, who opened one of New Hampshire’s first craft breweries in 1994, announced an auction for the company, which saddened but didn’t really surprise anyone who’s watched once successful regional breweries like Smutty try laboriously to keep up with a young craft beer drinking public that only wants to drink what’s new and shiny. The billionaire Vijay Mallya, who owned a majority of New York’s 21-year-old Saratoga Brewing and Northern California’s Mendocino Brewing, abruptly closed those two facilities. The Mendocino closure is personal to me, as it opened in 1983 as the second brew pub in the U.S. and it’s housed the equipment and some of the brewers who helped Jack McAuliffe and two female partners run Sonoma County’s New Albion Brewing as the first modern craft brewery in America. Plus, Mendocino’s Red Tail Ale has remained one of my top two sentimental favorite craft beers since I spent a year in San Francisco in the 90s.
Perhaps more widespread will be the retraction and retrenchment of some breweries that realize, despite many of their brewing colleagues opening up farther flung international outposts, distributing far and wide is expensive. In a drastic move, San Diego’s Green Flash Brewing announced last month that it would stop selling beer in 32 states out of a former 50 and will reduce its number of packages. Others have announced they’ll be focusing on core brands instead of putting out a new release every other month, as has been the contemporary custom.
I’ve extensively chronicled the issues these breweries face but if you need more proof, Brewbound reports that as of December 3, case sales declined for several stalwart flagships over last year, including Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (-9.2%), Samuel Adams Boston Lager (-11.3%) and New Belgium Fat Tire Amber Ale (-12.5%). Total sales for both Boston Beer (parent company to Sam Adams) and Sierra actually dropped, as did sales for Deschutes Brewery in Oregon, Craft Brew Alliance (Kona, Redhook and Widmer Brothers, among others) and North American Breweries (Magic Hat, Pyramid and Portland Brewing, among others).
- We’ll cry over continued consolidation
Nothing’s hit the news so far this year about any breweries – big or small – combining but I say we’ll inevitably witness more international conglomerate breweries and their ownerships buying little guys a la Anheuser-Busch InBev, Sapporo, Constellation (which owns Corona, among others). I think specifically we’ll see some movement from MillerCoors and Heineken. We’ll also see more joining of forces within craft, something that’s new to this corner of the industry but provides safe shelter for struggling breweries that don’t want to sell out and don’t want to close. Recent examples include Victory/Southern Tier and Oskar Blues/Cigar City/Perrin (which all technically belong to venture capitalists) and the non-hostile New Belgium takeover of San Francisco’s pioneering Magnolia Brewing.
The sale of Patron to Bacardi this month made minor news outside the trades. In the spirits world, massive consolidation isn’t new, it isn’t old, it just is. Though expect to see at least a few more big liquor companies buying strong craft distilleries, as Moet Hennessy did with Woodinville Whiskey in Washington last year.
- We’ll drink rye whiskey
American rye whiskey production increased by 778% between 2009 and 2016, equaling a 900% rise in revenue, reports the Distilled Spirits Council. Adds The Drinks Business, “The United States International Trade Commission (USITC) recently unveiled a new export code for exports of bottled rye whiskey to reflect the growth in the category … and allow the US government to track exports of American rye whiskey in the same way as they do with bourbon exports.”
