I did not find what I was looking for earlier this week thumbing through wrinkled pages of All About Beer magazines (a reminder of the time it rained a lot in New Mexico — shout out to “Better Call Saul” fans — and our garage flooded), but I did find a story from 1998 making predictions about what’s next.
(Being old and a creature of habit, I will likely continue to dig through boxes of paper, magazines included, when I am poking into the past. You don’t have to. The resurrected All About Beer archive, which as I type this goes back to 2002 and continues to grow, will serve you better.)
I love these sorts of stories, because they get things wrong and make us laugh. Except this one actually stands up surprisingly well.
Here’s the tl;dr version:
1. Macro micros are out; local beers are in
2. Lagers, lagers everywhere
Some came true faster than others
3. Domestic imports
”Foreign” beers would be brewed in the US
4. Here come the Corona clones
5. New beer hot spots, and must-have beers
6. Blurring the distinctions between micro-breweries and brewpubs, between contract breweries and brick-and-mortar breweries.
7. Mergers and buyouts will continue
And now, Greg Kitsock wrote, “let’s go out on a limb . . .”
8. Great availability of craft beer in cans
9. Non-alcohol craft beers
10. Small brewery-distilleries
He picked the right limb.