A canary in a coal mine?
Jeff Alworth has been trying to figure out how the recession is influencing craft beer sales. My gut feeling is that he’s on to something.
Look, I’m not predicting that a bunch of craft breweries are going to go out of business, but stories like this one, “Craft brew sales on the rise as more offbeat beer flavors hit Superbowl coolers,” seem a little too good to be true.
When you look at all the things people aren’t buying these days it would hardly be surprising to see a luxury, affordable or not, like craft beer on the list.
Yes, I’ve seen the reports from many brewers who say they are still in expansion mode, who are having trouble keeping up with orders. Is this, in economist-speak, a leading indicator or a lagging indicator?
Guess we’ll find out soon enough.
