27 thoughts on “Beer predictions for 2011”

  1. Craft Beer Sales will be slightly lower than projections…but still grow.

    Market Share will grow slightly.

    A lot of brewpubs will fail. We will all call this horrible. Then we will realize that lots of brewpubs fail every year, and we’ll all settle down.

    One of the big three will purchase a “guiding light” of the craft beer movement and it will be as if a thousand voice cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.

    Home brewers will get better yeast.

    Home brewers will lament they can’t get this yeast without resorting to starting scavenger ships and cruising the bottom of the North Sea and the Mediterranean and reusing the dregs from 13XX.

    A lot more craft breweries will start distilling. And do it damn well, and lose lots of money doing it.

    I will drink a bottle of beer in Istanbul. I just hope it is NOT on my honeymoon. I don’t even like her that much.

  2. Austin will be known as one of the fastest growth brewery markets in the U.S. It won’t be surprising seeing how they need a lot more breweries compared to how much Texans drink and love great beer.

  3. Sierra Nevada will begin to market all of their beers as “Fresh Hop Ales” (as they did with Celebration this year), explaining that hops that are refrigerated within two weeks of being dried are now defined as “fresh”.

  4. Some beergeeks will get their nose bent over other folks challenging the ‘rah-rah’ support of the craft beer industry with rational criticism.

    There will be another remake of the ‘I am a craft brewer’ video in some other form following the same format.

    The ‘my beer city is better than your beer city’ pissing match will continue with no clear winner.

    I like Velky Al’s idea.

    Casks will get bigger nationally, same for barrel aged beers.

    Festivals will need to change their MO, paying brewers for kegs.

  5. Session beers. I think that tastes are tired of having 20 Imperial enamel pealer on tap and will be looking for brewers that can make them. Not to say that big beers don’t have their place but something delicious and lower should play well.

  6. Many craft beer drinkers will realize that, after years of trying dozens of different beers annually, they have gravitated to a handful of brews that make up 90% of their drinking. And they’ll be fine with that.

  7. 1) We’ll all limp through another year with a less-than-satisfying concept of craft or micro or artisan or hand-crafted beer.
    2) More growth, but plenty of distractions from the fact that most people drink the most beer from the breweries that produce the most beer. (duh!)
    3) And now on to those distractions:
    a) Brewery collaborations with restaurants, maltsters and hop farms.
    b) A forced marriage of Nano and local, small, single site breweries into a movement as a response to the BA definition of small. Call it a hyper-local emphasis.
    c) A beer blogger of note will get called to the carpet for pay-for-play.
    d) A brewery will get a C&D from a government agency about it’s use of social media.
    e) Brewery plan of successions will occupy our time. Brewery Godfathers will be named.

  8. Pennsylvania will finally pull their head from their arse and change the arcane way with how they treat alcohol. Privatize liquor stores and stop being a “case” state. You can’t buy a 750 of Chimay, u need to spend $109 to buy a case of it…great business model u clowns

  9. One or more of the industrial breweries will throw money at the BA and the “craft” definition will be changed again, this time naming all breweries “craft breweries.” The small breweries will protest and the BA will let the industrial breweries continue to call themselves “craft breweries,” while the small breweries will be permitted to call themselves “amazing breweries.”

    The BJCP and their friends will continue making up new beer styles, and they will hire a professional wordologist to create new words since all the good ones have already been used up.

    Actual warfare will break out between Rate Beer and Beer Advocate. The owner of one of them will hire a small plane, load it up with “amazing beer” that has been stored for three years at Chernobyl and drop it on the headquarters building of the other. The bombed party will surrender and will redo their site to evaluate milk (style submissions should be sent to ….)

    The escalation of Trappist beer styles will continue and quadruples will soon be surpassed by quintuples, sextuples and whatever you call the next one. Beer Advocate will report the first Imperial Triple Quadruple and it will be accepted as a valid style at the GABF.

    Other than that, more of the same.

  10. Budweiser drinkers will start looking elsewhere after a combination of being exposed to a variety of new flavors in Bud Light Golden Wheat and Bud Light Lime, a reduction in advertising in the part of Inbev, a reduction of quality in the product and a renewal of patriotism in purchasing.

  11. The world’s supply of used barrels will be depleted sending many breweries into a stir.

    Oyster stouts will be joined by other seafood related brews (increased sales also for A-B’s Clamato beer-thingy).

    Led by an increase in anger, aggression, and fear, there will be a spread of “Black IPAs” and many other styles in dark-side versions.

  12. A barley – grape fusion drink will be produced by a company with backing from a rich nut. Intense promotion to both beer and wine types will be put forth including a celebrity endorsement that will peak fad type interest but ultimately the product will fail because it proves too snooty for beer fanciers and too gauche for wine aficionados – and because it tastes like compost juice.

  13. Hopefully 3rd times a charm and the law against on premise brewery sales will be lifted/changed in Texas.

    And approximately 1500 breweries are scheduled to open in Texas this year.

  14. Craft beer prices will continue to creep up. I’ll continue to complain and reminisce about the days of $7.99 6-packs. I’ll probably homebrew more often than I did in 2010.

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