“Good people drink good beer.”
If you spend long enough in craft beer circles, you will almost certainly hear this adage, cribbed from Hunter S. Thompson and repurposed as an industry motto. (As writer Dave Infante recently recounted, you might also hear that craft beer is “99% asshole-free.”) Here, both seem to suggest, is an industry full of fine folk, doing what they love and making beer—and maybe the world—better for it. What’s not to like about that?
The self-congratulatory sentiment these sayings express has pervaded craft beer for decades, alongside the industry’s understanding of itself as a morally upright underdog. Many make the parallel between David and Goliath and craft beer’s progenitors: Back in the late 1970s and early ’80s, the U.S. beer market was dominated by multinational breweries, and the handful of brewers imagining an alternative to mass-produced, one-dimensional beer was an almost-literal drop in the ocean. And yet those scrappy upstarts succeeded in fighting back, in imagining a brighter future for beer, and in changing the way we drink for the better.
These stories, now parables themselves, are still told with fervor some four decades later. Words like “independence,” “artisanal,” and, well, “craft” feed into the industry’s myth-making. The image of the plucky young homebrewer making beer in a garage is as present now as it was 40 years ago. As the tale goes, David still twirls his slingshot, hurling cans of locally brewed, independent, small-batch, hoppy Pale Ale towards a soulless, multinational Goliath.
But after all this time, craft beer’s continued reliance on its old narratives is no longer a call to arms: it’s a warning sign. Underneath all that mythos is an industry in the midst of an existential crisis, grappling with stagnation and facing an uncertain future.
Since I began working in the industry in 2015, the idea that “Big Beer” was the enemy prevailed. Craft beer forums would censor discussion of any beers available for purchase in supermarkets; breweries who “sold out” to Heineken, Anheuser-Busch InBev, Kirin, or any other “macro brewery” would become taboo; and I, like many of my peers, would ardently avoid drinking anything but “craft” beer. The idea of the shadowy, underhanded Big Beer operative lurking around every corner, desperate to snatch back the sliver of market share stolen by independent beer, permeated the spaces I inhabited. “Fuck Big Beer!” was the message, and we were its evangelists.
But what’s the most serious challenge—the conglomerate of multinationals collectively known as “Big Beer,” or craft beer’s own flaws? “If you had asked me this five years ago, I would have said ‘Big Beer’ in an instant,” says Ren Navarro of Beer. Diversity. “But now? I think it’s craft beer itself. It’s turning into the snake that ate its own tail.”
Certainly, Big Beer does pose a threat to the craft sector. Brewery buyouts threaten listings, further aid the proverbial race to the bottom on pricing, and undermine craft beer’s value proposition. Eager not to lose any more market share to the pesky craft beer sector, multinationals use a number of tools to push small, independent breweries to one side, all while offering a similar set of flavors and values—just at a lower price. To the unsuspecting consumer, AB InBev’s London-headquartered Camden Town Brewery offering pubs a quarter of a million free pints last year looks like generosity of spirit, as opposed to flooding the market and undercutting independent competition. It is not hard to find examples of such companies behaving badly.
But at this point in craft beer’s evolution, blaming Big Beer for all its problems feels like a dereliction. Despite fervent promises to do and be better, the industry seems stuck in a pattern of repeating its mistakes, from exclusionary behavior and poor workplace standards to quality-control issues and even outright dangerous practices. In response, the same conversations are had, the same promises made, all while real change remains elusive. Craft beer can no longer afford such complacency: As sales shrink, as it fails to live up to its founding stories—or to sell itself to new and, importantly, more diverse consumers—it’s clear that ambitious, radical change will be needed to return the industry to a growth phase, and wider relevancy.
Craft beer’s pitch to the consumer has long been that it is a better product because it is not mass-produced. It is made not by some faceless corporation but by someone with a story. Its position is that you should care about that person and what motivates them; that understanding their process will further your enjoyment. It is an industry that looks to beer’s many traditions, but which offers something new and exciting. This beer is worth paying more for by virtue of its crafted status, in other words.
The fact is that craft beer remains an expensive endeavor. As in any industry, smaller businesses can’t compete with larger companies on pricing. In beer, the independent breweries that come close—such as Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., Boston Beer Co., and BrewDog—rely on economies of scale, enormous product turnover, and placements in mainstream retail. Still, they don’t approach the price points of, say, Budweiser, or Miller Lite. With or without favorable contracts, hops remain enormously expensive (even more so if you’re looking for more covetable and sought-after varieties), and specialty malts and ingredients like high-quality fruit add to the cost.
Craft beer was never intended to compete on price, though. Instead, the sector’s reputation for quality and creativity has been used to justify its higher price tags to consumers. The key is convincing new drinkers that their experience is going to be good enough to merit the few extra bucks—a problem that is becoming keener for the industry.
Craft beer’s sales, production volumes, and market share have fallen in the U.S. Production is down -9% on last year, exacerbated by the pandemic, and its market share is down to 12.3% from 13.6% in 2020, according to the Brewers Association’s Annual Production Report. These latest numbers follow several years of slowing sales. As many drinkers’ purse strings remain tightened at this point in the pandemic, and as full hospitality reopening timelines remain unclear, craft beer urgently needs to make the case—to wider audiences, communities, and cultures than it has historically spoken to—that the enjoyment it offers is worth the sticker price.
Cost is only one part of the industry’s general struggle with accessibility. While specialty bottle shops and retailers have long offered support and patronage to independent breweries, they also cater to a narrower subset of consumers. Little of the work to convert potential drinkers takes place on neutral ground for the uninitiated. Relying on niche shops or bars as industry evangelists means struggling to reach those who are unfamiliar with such spaces. Put it this way: If you’re trying to convince me that mountain biking should be for me, and you’re expecting me to step into a bike shop to be convinced, it’s likely not going to happen. How, then, can craft beer more actively pursue new avenues, and cater to new demographics?
“It’s a difficult but not impossible play,” explains Josie Becker, a brewer at Common Space Brewery in Los Angeles. “Trying to compete on price point with macro beer when packaging and sending to market is pretty much impossible, and that’s really where we have the chance to reach people who aren’t normally craft beer folk. But you do your best, getting beer in local liquor markets and bodegas is a good starting point, even if it’s still gonna be at a premium price.”
For Anthony and Helena Adedipe, co-founders of the U.K.-based Eko Brewery—which makes beers “inspired by African tradition” and sells them in a range of outlets outside of specialist sales channels—this approach has shown to be a success. “Our experience outside the craft beer bubble has been relatively positive,” says Helena. “We have found that once customers taste our beers and get to find out about the ingredients and processes which drive the premium price, they are happy to buy our beers.”
[Disclosure: The author runs the Queer Brewing Project, which, alongside several beer businesses including Eko Brewery, has recently partnered with Cloudwater Brew Co. on a limited-edition IPA four-pack.]
“Craft has never been able to compete on price; it has always been a value proposition,” says Michael Graham, co-founder of Austin Beerworks. “We need to convince people that the enjoyment-to-cost ratio is a better deal than anything else on the shelf. For those after the cheapest buzz possible, craft will likely never be the answer.”
For that value proposition to truly work, the beer has to be good. That it often isn’t is one of the industry’s most trenchant problems.
“A great deal of the pitch that craft beer makes to the public is in opposition to macro beer,” Becker says. “If you have to define your product by what it isn’t, you don’t have a product. Local beer doesn’t taste better if the beer isn’t good. There’s nothing craft about beer that’s inconsistent, and on occasion, undrinkable.”
Craft beer was born out of the ad hoc world of homebrewing, and even today replicates many of its informal standards. Too many small breweries fail to prioritize quality-assurance processes, lab testing, sensory training, and other educational practices for their staff. “There’s too much bad beer out there. That’s craft beer’s problem,” Becker continues. “Until there are better standards across the industry, why is an average customer going to pay a premium for a four-pack?”
Faults can happen to anyone—for example, oxidation as a result of a non-airtight can lid seam—but most are largely preventable. What’s completely avoidable, however, is knowingly packaging and selling beers that present risk of bodily harm.
Can bombs are an increasingly common phenomenon in the industry: The rise in heavily fruited beers, such as “Slushie” and “Smoothie” IPAs and Sours, combined with insufficient quality control, means that consumers are sometimes asked to dispose of still-fermenting, bulging, and potentially explosive cans themselves (or are blamed for not storing them cold when they do burst), as the yeast still present within the beer continues to ferment the ample fruit sugars after packaging. The best-case scenario is a kitchen that looks like a crime scene. The worst-case is severe injury.
Incredibly, craft beer consumers are seemingly split on the issue of exploding cans, between those who think it’s a fair risk to be shouldered in order to enjoy the product in question, and those who think breweries sending out can-shaped hand grenades and absolving themselves of any responsibility is absolutely nuts. Who wouldn’t be okay with a little aluminum shrapnel in their eye as a trade-off for 6% ABV fruit puree?
Can bombs are an extreme, but craft beer feels, well, more absurdist than before. Glasses are out, candlesticks, novelty vases, and—maybe not surprisingly—penis-shaped drinking vessels are in. Liquid beer is no longer à la mode; instead, viscous “slime beer” is all the rage. Your four ingredients—water, malt, hops, and yeast—no longer suffice. If a beer isn’t chunky with cookies or fruit or waffle cones, drinkers don’t want to know.
Of course, these trends aren’t actually taking over the industry, and the breweries leaning hard into them are in the minority. But it’s a vocal minority that has real impact on the optics of craft beer—particularly on social media—and one that does little to dispel negative stereotypes about the industry. Come on in, the beer’s gloopy!
“The fact that so much of the marketing is based around IBUs and throwing stupid things into mash tuns makes craft beer look like an unprofessional side project for a bunch of trust-funded dudes,” says Becker. “But craft beer as an industry has decided that these are the things it has to do to survive. Things like exploding cans, under-attenuated beers, and beers that are little more than Kern’s Nectar with some alcohol in the background don’t scream ‘craftsmanship.’”
Creativity and tradition will always coexist, if a little bumpily at times, and there are cases to be made on both sides. Are these beers off-putting gimmicks or genuinely envelope-pushing? Do they lessen the sincerity of an industry attempting to win over new drinkers, or do they offer new drinkers something bold and exciting? Does esteem for traditional beer styles play into the industry’s longevity, or does the fetishization of tradition quell creativity? Is making increasingly baroque beers just another way of standing out in a crowded marketplace?
“Craft beer loves to tout that there are more breweries now in the U.S. than before Prohibition, but I’m not sure that’s a good thing,” says Becker. “Why do we need so many breweries? We’re fighting over such a tiny slice of the market share, instead of investing in growth and quality.”
If what’s in the (sometimes-explosive) can is an issue, so is what’s on the outside. “I have several concerns with exploding cans and stolen IP, both of which seem increasingly common—and even defended—by some members of the craft community,” says Graham. “Firstly, both are just lazy. That mainly upsets me on a personal level because of all the time, money, and effort we’ve put into quality control and branding. But, it’s ultimately up to consumers whether or not they care about those things.”
That intellectual property theft keeps happening in craft beer suggests that the consumer doesn’t care. Beers whose labels rip off well-known brands and pop-culture figures are popular on social media, and sell well. This flagrant disregard for IP law is routinely condemned by a range of industry professionals on social media, but it would seem they’re outmatched by breweries keen to ape Ben & Jerry’s, In-N-Out, or OnlyFans.
Rarely are there any consequences for such behavior. The mimicked brand or parent company might send a cease and desist letter that has little to no impact, given the offending beer is almost always a one-off release. To those unconcerned by labeling restrictions or the ethics of beer branding, it’s just a bit of fun.
“My bigger issue is how those issues will affect the regulation of our industry,” Graham says. “I worry that IP theft will lead to stricter labeling laws and exploding cans will lead to more brewery inspections and oversight. Maybe that’s ultimately a good thing if it protects consumers, but I’d much rather breweries do it on their own.”
Whether or not regulators get involved, such antics aren’t helping the industry cultivate a more serious reputation. Outside the bubble, craft beer remains the butt of jokes, seen as the realm of bearded white guys in their 30s who have replaced their personality with thousands of Untappd check-ins. To many, craft beer just isn’t cool. In some more extreme cases (and as seen in many disheartening but high-quality memes) IPA is synonymous with toxic masculinity. Can craft beer really bank on its underdog status when hyped Hazy IPAs have become “the official beer of Wall Street”?
The internet-depicted fervor of the average white male craft beer fan, whose pedantry about hop varieties is only matched by his proclivity for standing in hours-long lines in all temperatures to buy four-packs of beer, has made the industry’s largest audience easy fodder for ridicule. It doesn’t help that any jokes about how IPAs all taste the same or are the preserve of the “well, actually” dude are met with bleats of how interesting and flavorful IPA truly is.
Instead of meeting skeptics where they are, many craft beer drinkers are guilty of nurturing a stubborn evangelism. Misguided attempts to “convert” Bud Light drinkers or shame hard seltzer lovers are more likely to turn people further away from the sector. The tribalism and elitism that have come to characterize craft beer across social media—the fact that its avatar is so commonly depicted as a gatekeeping, geeky white dude—don’t do the industry any favors.
The memes are right about one thing: Craft beer is unmistakably dominated by cisgender, heterosexual white men. According to 2018 data from the Brewers Association, 85.5% of craft drinkers were white, and 68.5% were male. The industry has long been seen as an unfriendly place for Black workers and drinkers, and recent questions about who craft beer’s “community” actually includes have proliferated. Meanwhile, queer erasure and the lack of data collection (due to employers in the U.S. being legally allowed to fire employees for being queer or trans until last year) mean we don’t know the figures on LGBTQ+ industry professionals, though my colleague Holly Regan’s 400-person-strong survey showed 94% of respondents are cisgender, and 65% straight.
This lack of broad representation means many non-white, non-male drinkers don’t see a place for themselves in the industry. “On the whole, I don’t think craft beer has done nearly enough to shake its image as the bastion of white bearded bros,” says Becker. “Even at its top levels, craft beer has brands like Arrogant Bastard, which state clearly, ‘This probably isn’t for you.’”
Such homogeneity is more than just a punchline in a joke about white male culture—it can foster a hostile environment for those who aren’t reflected in its stereotypes, which in turn translates into a lack of growth for the industry. How can we expect the sector to evolve further if we’re only speaking to a narrow audience?
“I think a lot of that stems from the craft beer cliche [of], ‘We brew what we like to drink,’” says Graham. “That mentality extends to everything: ‘We deliver to the bars where we like to drink.’ ‘We make ads that make us laugh.’ ‘We hire people we like to hang out with.’ If you only concentrate on appealing to people like yourself, it can have the consequence of excluding everyone else, intentionally or not.”
Delivering to bars in which “we” like to drink further compounds on issues of exclusivity. Few breweries or distributors seem eager to look beyond existing routes to market, despite alternatives with strong growth opportunities—entire markets with great potential lie all but untouched.
“I mean, at least here in California, craft beer loves minority neighborhoods ’cause the rent is cheap,” says Becker. “They just don’t do too much work to make sure they’re actually selling to their local community.” A lazy assumption floats around that, if Black people, and queer people, and women, and other people from minority backgrounds really did enjoy craft beer, the industry’s demographics would clearly reflect that. This assumption, of course, overlooks many existing barriers to entry.
“It’s too easy to look at the data and assume there’s only one customer there,” Becker continues. “If your user data tells you your base is 21-to-42-year-old white men, that doesn’t mean [you should] target your marketing message to sound as bro-y as possible. That means you aren’t doing enough to reach out to young women and people of color. Instead of asking, ‘Why aren’t these people following us?’ too often the assumption is, ‘These people don’t care about craft beer.’”
“Last I heard, yes, Black people, queers, and other minorities like craft beer,” Navarro tells me. “Perhaps even love it. We aren’t the focus year-round, so it’s easy to believe that we don’t care for it. Craft beer has been positioned for a very long time as a white guy thing, which is slowly starting to change and be talked about.”
The feedback loop created by such assumptions bolsters the idea that craft beer is made by and for white people. Such limits, enforced in the form of both micro- and more overt aggressions, work to keep potential new drinkers and customers out. “Such lazy stereotypes make it hard for the underrepresented to get into craft beer,” Navarro says. “It’s ridiculous. I’ve been in this industry for almost a decade and I still have white people—mainly men—asking me if I really drink beer. Are you kidding me?!”
Craft beer’s problems with representation and inclusion don’t just extend to its customers, but also to those working in the industry. Today, many small breweries remain understaffed, stretch overworked employees between poorly defined roles, often fail to take workplace safety seriously, and offer relatively low compensation in the process. As a result, building a career in beer remains inaccessible to many.
“Most craft breweries already rely on cheap labor, and payroll still makes up the majority of cost of goods sold,” says Graham. “If anything, I’d like to see higher prices—not to reduce accessibility, but to make brewing a more viable career.” But if margins are tight, ingredients expensive, and many breweries already price their beer as competitively as possible, there’s little wiggle room. Right?
“You can’t ask how breweries can be more diverse while at the same time giving breweries an out for why these jobs aren’t attractive,” says Becker. “If you’re better off getting a job in a supermarket, why would anyone outside of those with the privilege to live on less take any of these jobs? And if you’re shocked to find out affluence is still the domain of an undiverse class then I don’t know what to tell you.”
Though unpaid internships are now uncommon, it’s still not unheard of for those eager to work in beer to offer their time for free in return for loose training and the chance to gain some experience in a brewhouse—putting those who can afford to do so at an advantage compared with those who can’t.
On top of that, the craft beer sector is notorious for its low wages. Brewing and packaging roles in the U.K. vary, though begin at around £20,000 ($28,000) a year and rarely exceed £30,000 ($41,000) for small breweries—the average brewer’s salary (unspecified by sector) is £21,811 ($30,351) according to Payscale, and £24,260 ($33,758) according to Glassdoor. In the U.S., Payscale puts the average brewer salary at $37,000, and head brewer at $42,000, though 2018 data from the Brewers Association has the average salary (across all production output, ranging from 1-500 to 40,000+ barrels per year) of an assistant brewer at around $35,000, and head brewer at close to $48,000. For taproom staff, the BA shows average salaries (again, across production output ranges) varying from $18,000 to $38,000. Broadly speaking, salaries do not increase in line with the cost of living.
Considering increasingly high costs of living, and the often physically demanding work expected in return, these figures are not generous, or, for many, even livable. Whether it’s bar work, packaging, or brewing, employees are often expected to put in long hours, with either very early starts or late finishes, and to put themselves at risk of injury (or illness, as has been emphasized during the pandemic). Meanwhile, the industry has few examples of successful unionization, while, as Jerard Fagerberg notes in a piece for October, even “Budweiser, Miller, Coors, Pabst, Michelob, Schlitz, and Sam Adams all live out their advertised values in the form of union affiliation.”
Instead, breweries have long counted on those who are already passionate about craft beer to accept such sacrifices in order to do what they love. Beyond ensuring many in the industry are overworked and underpaid, this attitude also serves as one of its most significant barriers to entry.
“Craft breweries are small businesses that require a multi-million-dollar investment, and there’s way too much attitude carrying over from the homebrew roots of ‘good enough is good enough,’” says Becker. “Outside of the breweries that have grown to a national size, titles are meaningless and wages are fixed well below a livable standard. I get asked all the time about how to get more women working in craft beer, but I couldn’t in good conscience recommend this job to anyone—especially not another woman.”
Considering that, as Becker puts it, “affluence is still the domain of an undiverse class,” the craft beer sector’s paltry salaries are yet another hurdle in its path to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Though representation as a goal can be problematic in itself—treating the symptoms of a problem as opposed to the cause is palliative, rather than curative—it does have a part to play in improving an undiverse industry. If salaries afforded job opportunities to those currently excluded, a more diverse range of people would be reflected by industry professionals, potentially broadening the appeal of working in craft beer. Hiring more widely—and paying actual living wages—is another way to open up the industry. Currently, craft beer forecloses on this option with its limited remuneration and often-biased hiring methodology.
“The industry doesn’t pay most of its workers enough to be independent, and I’d never advise someone to take a job where they are going to struggle to support themselves,” Becker adds. “How many breweries don’t even offer vacation time? If you are passionate enough about beer to want to sacrifice as much as you’re going to have to in order to make it work, go for it. But I wouldn’t advise it.”
Craft beer’s promise to be better than the multinational beer it sought to disrupt looks to have succeeded—at least as far as the liquid is concerned. There is a greater style range available now than ever, and far more creativity. If craft beer’s sole purpose was to push back against the homogeneity of Light Lager, then that battle has been won.
But who was that promise made for? It seems to have been addressed to the “founding fathers” of craft beer themselves, or those like them. Women in the industry face harassment, objectification, and other forms of misogyny; those from marginalized and underrepresented backgrounds such as the LGBTQ+, Black, and Asian communities remain discriminated against and excluded—in particular, Black communities are overlooked, ignored, and capitalized on.
Now, the industry needs to recognize the severity of the existential threats it’s facing, and to acknowledge how many are of its own making. If it really wants to reclaim lost market share and see sales bounce back, it should stop fixating on its old foe, Big Beer, and confront the ways it has refused to modernize or update its value system to remain in step with a forward-moving society. Growth could be possible again—but it will not be easily won.
For Becker, craft beer’s problems are all linked. “Until craft beer gets a better market share, wages aren’t going to go up,” she says. “So long as breweries don’t have a diverse staff because the wages don’t warrant it, no one is going to step up and say our messaging isn’t going to resonate beyond our core, which is small. And we’ll continue to claim to be about one thing—craft goods—while really being about another—bro culture.”
What its opponents need to understand is that pursuing diversity, equity, and inclusivity isn’t simply about being “woke,” “virtue-signaling,” or hopping on the bandwagon. It is about securing the longevity of the whole industry and uncoupling that fateful ouroboros. By reaching underserved and overlooked communities in a meaningful and genuine way—and doing so with a high-quality, well-made product—craft beer’s market share could begin to grow once more. As those premium prices appear more justifiable, wages could rise—and careers in craft beer might then become more viable to everyone, not just those who can already afford to take a financial hit.
It may be that craft beer’s promise made all those years ago was right all along. Craft beer can still be a welcoming place where drinkers go to encounter new experiences, creativity, and a spirit of collaboration. To fulfill that promise, we just need, collectively, to commit to doing and being better than what came before now. Those already doing the work to drag the industry into the present day, to present an alternate future to the one currently offered, must be recognized, supported, compensated, and joined, and their direction and aims more broadly legitimized. That work cannot be left to a few, or to those who need it most.
As craft beer experiences prolonged contraction, as it navigates the pandemic’s fallout, the urgency and necessity of reaching a wider audience has never been greater. To do so, the industry needs to double down on quality, to explore broader retail channels, to move beyond exclusion, and to meet new audiences where they are, with an open mind. Then, maybe, we’ll see what craft beer can really do.
Words by Lily WaiteIllustrations by Colette Holston
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