For the first time since at least 2015, an equal number of craft beer drinkers surveyed in the Brewers Association’s (BA) annual Harris Poll said they were drinking more craft beer in 2023 than the amount who said they were drinking less craft beer – about 25% each.
BA chief economist Bart Watson detailed results of the 2023 survey Thursday during a webinar. More than 2,000 craft consumers were asked about their drinking and buying habits, with “craft consumers” defined as consumers who drink craft beer several times a year or more.
The amount of respondents who are drinking more craft beer has always outpaced those who are drinking less in previous surveys, dating back to at least 2015. One caveat is that the survey does not include consumers who have left the segment completely or no longer fit in the “craft consumer” definition.
The survey backed up other data, such as Scarborough USA data from 2020-2021, which showed the number of consumers who bought craft in the last 30 days was static versus the previous year, after steadily increasing in years prior, according to Watson.
Watson dove into why consumers are choosing craft more – or less – and other bev-alc attributes that factor into consumer buying decisions. Here are some of the highlights:
Drinking Other Products No. 1 Reason Consumers Drinking Less Craft
Of the respondents who said they were drinking less craft beer than last year – again, about a quarter of total respondents – the No. 1 reason cited for drinking less was they were drinking more of something else. More than half of respondents who are drinking less cited drinking more of other bev-alc products as the reason for the change, significantly above the next highest reason, “opting for a healthier lifestyle” (less than 30%).
The third largest reason was “cutting back on overall calories consumption,” followed by “cannot afford it anymore” due to higher prices and “less disposable income.”
The significance to craft producers is that breweries can do more to counteract the shift to other products, while inflation and interest in health are less in their control, according to Watson.
“You can’t control inflation,” Watson said. “You can control how your brand is positioned relative to other beverage-alcohol offerings.
“That gives some agency back to brewery owners as you’re thinking about the challenges and the headwinds that craft faces, that the No. 1 challenge is still that people are thinking more of something else” he continued.
Some craft producers appear to already counteracting the trend, as the No. 1 reason respondents who were drinking more craft beer said they were doing so was because they were drinking less of something else (more than 60%), followed by “more available” (about 45%), “looking for more variety” and “looking for better quality” (both nearly 40%).
Weekly Craft Drinkers Still Drinking A Lot of Other Categories
For craft’s most loyal consumers – those that drink craft on a weekly basis – other bev-alc segments are still widely appealing.
More than half of weekly craft consumers also drink domestic non-craft beer (67%), imported beer (65%), spirits/liquor (63%), wine (61%), flavored malt beverages (55%), hard seltzer (50%) and ready-to-drink (RTD) canned cocktails (50%).
Watson also analyzed which segments were growing the most among all craft beer drinkers, subtracting the amount of respondents who said they were drinking less of a segment from those that were drinking more.
Hard seltzers grew the most, with 8% more respondents saying they were drinking more of the segment versus those that said less, followed by FMBs (7%), wine (5%), RTDs (5%) and spirits/liquor (2%). Domestic non-craft beer (-2%) and imported beer (-3%) were less popular with craft consumers.
Flavor Most Important to Craft Buyers
When choosing which craft beer to purchase, flavor was the No. 1 reason – important to about 95% of respondents – followed by freshness (just over 90%).
Flavor has been in the mid- to high-90s every time the BA has conducted the survey, Watson said.
“If you’re not thinking about flavor as the No. 1 value proposition of craft, then you’re not where most customers are when they think about craft,” Watson said.
The emphasis on flavor could be the reason why craft lagers have struggled to get a foothold, but they could have success by leaning into consumers’ desire for “freshness,” Watson added.
Younger Consumers Care More about ABV, Less About Locality
The amount of craft consumers that care about whether a beer is locally made has been on a decline since 2021, with just over 60% of 2023 survey respondents saying locality was “somewhat” or “very” important.
That decline is expected to continue as younger consumers make up more of the bev-alc consumer base, Watson said. The shift has come as Gen. Z gets older and starts to spend more money on bev-alc.
Millennials were the generation that pushed the most for locality, emphasizing the importance of local business to local economies. Gen Z cares more about supporting a business that supports causes they align with, rather than supporting a business just because it’s in the same area code. It’s a shift that’s happening across most consumer goods, not just beer, Watson said.
“[Gen Z], they’re taking a little bit more specific approach: ‘I have a particular value that I care about, that I want companies to live by,’” Watson said. And while they recognize that maybe local companies do that more, they are very open to big companies doing that as well.
“It’s much more about the specific things that local has brought than local itself,” he continued.
Younger legal-drinking-age (LDA) consumers also care more about ABV when making purchasing decisions, Watson said. The importance of high ABV and low ABV were both the highest with respondents aged 35-44, followed by respondents aged 21-34.
While younger LDA consumers being interested in higher ABV beers isn’t a total surprise – possibly some “bang for your buck” buying – it is “interesting” that they’re also interested in low-ABV offerings more than 45-and-older consumers.
“These two youngest groups care the most about this, [which] to me suggests in the future this is going to be more important,” Watson said.