Session 117

Predicting the future

As stated by Brookstone Beer Bulletin:The Session, a.k.a. Beer Blogging Friday, is an opportunity once a month for beer bloggers from around the world to get together and write from their own unique perspective on a single topic. This month The Session is hosted by Beer Meets Business, who would like to know what we think we will see more of in the future of craft beer. Tough topic, as it 's hard to separate what I want to see and what will actually happen.
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What we will see
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The same. We will see new breweries popping up, offering the same flashy keywords they need to deliver to attach themselves to the craft beer market. Whether they're brewing hop-forward beers to make the next great IPA, sessionable beers for drinkability, or wild ales to capture a region’s terroir, the craft beer market is still a niche. There is still plenty of room for other brewers to come in, and each will find a way to brew beer in their own way. Essentially, the boring answer is, the brewing industry will carry on as normal. Breweries have bought other breweries in the past, others have brewed the most popular style, while others were dedicated to ‘traditional’ beers. So, I guess we’re at the new age of the normalization of the brewing industry.

I’m not trying to be pessimistic. The more the merrier, as they say. It’s just, looking at history, shake-ups in the brewing industry only come once in a long while. Look at Egypt; they had a (seemingly) continuous brewing culture for 3,000 years until the Greeks came and messed it all up (apologies to Brewing Classical). But really, the biggest changes to European beer have been the industrialization of brewing, the proliferation of hops, Pasteur’s work on S. cerevisiae and the advent of lager beer. One could make the argument too that all-brett beers are the newest form of beer, but that remains to be seen.

What we will see is more proliferation of indigenous brewing styles and brewing recreations. When so many breweries are seeking to distinguish themselves, they’re forced to look at how they approach brewing. One easy way to do this is to look to other countries who’ve developed their own brewing culture. In parts of Africa and India, for example, it is tradition to pour hot water over a communal batch of beer, so drinkers have a constant source to drink. Whether this is to Western tastes is one thing, but to adopt it and use it as a source of inspiration would, I find, bring great variety. 

This won’t happen anytime soon, as the research isn’t out quite yet. But things are moving in brewing archaeology and history, which I think will bring great innovation to the industry. To be fair, and to add a bit of skepticism to my dream, people typically say the beers aren't superb. Or they're good, but not great. The most recent rendition stated the beers were interesting but wouldn’t be to the public’s taste. I'm just waiting for the day a brewery takes history as the inspiration, and brings it up to date. 

But, these aren’t new things, just revivals. So, I’m afraid the future of craft beer is simply more of the same.

​Which is a good thing.