Happy New Beer Year!

After looking back over 2023 in last week’s column, today we will look ahead and offer some thoughts, predictions and a resolution for 2024.

It seems that the days of craft brewing being an automatic cash cow (for those who do it well) are gone. While the pandemic certainly took its toll, I believe that the craft beer market had already started to slow down before that. After all, we couldn’t count on double-digit percentage sales increases forever.

I think that this means 2024 will be a year of slight growth, but guided by cautious hands on the rudder. This is both a pretty safe call and a good thing, I believe. Although we all enjoyed seeing new breweries pop up all over the map (and seemingly every week), I think there truly can be “too much of a good thing.” Having an endless array of choices can be exciting, but it also can be paralyzing. Few if any of us have unlimited cash to spend on trying every brew that floods down the pike.

If I ruled the craft beer world, I’d love to see most small-to-medium breweries narrow their focus a bit. It’s great to have a varied portfolio, but that doesn’t mean you have to have a dozen different styles, or even a dozen different beers. There’s nothing wrong with featuring an IPA, a stout, a pale ale, a sour and maybe one or two other styles.

Lagers, of course, are always refreshing to see in a craft brewery’s lineup, but we all know lagers take more time to make and aren’t always feasible, depending on the brewery’s capacity and schedule.

On the other hand, there are cases where I’d love to see a bit more diversity from some breweries. But I am certainly not going to tell anyone to change a business model that works for them.

One trend that I’d love to see slow down a little is the New England IPA haze craze. But again, if tons of people are still buying them at a heady clip, then so be it. I just wish I could find more diversity in the IPA category on beer shelves now.

My final wish today (and every day, frankly) is for more cask beer to be available. As always, I understand the ephemeral nature of real (cask) ale and the risks of trying to sell it. And maybe that leads me to the resolution part of today’s column: If you’re a craft beer fan, I assume you love real ale, so make sure you resolve to support any event that features it.

And don’t be afraid to ask about it at your local brewery. The only way the place is going to try it is if they think they can sell it. And they’ll only think they can sell it if enough people ask.

I hope you all have a marvelous 2024. Cheers.

You can reach me at geolenker@yahoo.com.

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