It was easy to miss, but the fall and winter of 2022 delivered some good news for our industry. Autumn beer festivals brought customers out in droves, and they kept coming into our bars, taprooms, and restaurants straight through what was certainly a more celebratory holiday season than we experienced the year before. Without major COVID spikes to derail the second half of our year, business seemed like it was getting just about back to normal.
But was it?
Even as on-premise sales came roaring back, with holiday travel and office parties signaling a long-anticipated rebound, something was clearly different on the ground. The sales of draft beer, whether experienced through over-the-bar business or keg distribution, were clearly slipping. Now a familiar cast of characters, the litany of craft beer–crushing competitors had struck again—only this time hard seltzers, flavored malt beverages (FMBs) more broadly, spiked kombuchas, nonalcoholic (NA) offerings, cocktails, ready-to-drink cocktails (RTDs), and the like were specifically choking off the flow of craft beer at the tap.