A decade or more down the road, when we look back at this era of craft beer’s history, I suspect we may find ourselves quoting that classic Dickens line, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Craft beer’s explosive growth over the past ten years has been marked by both the unbridled enthusiasm of possibility and a concurrent Chicken-Little dread of its imminent collapse, creating a tension and disbelief as the more dire predictions failed to materialize.
But here we are now, more than a half decade past the start of the loudest “this bubble is going to burst” cries, with more than 6,000 operating breweries in the United States and at least another thousand in planning—almost four times as many breweries as existed back in 2008. It’s been quite a wild ride, and while it may sound cliché, the only constant has been change.
When I look back at the Spring 2014 issue of Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine®, our first focusing on IPAs, I’m reminded of just how fast this change can happen. At least a dozen of the beers we reviewed, including blue-chip beers such as Stone IPA or New Belgium Ranger IPA, have been reformulated, rebranded, or retired. The beer drinker’s love affair with West Coast IPAs that started in the mid 2000s and drove that early phase of growth has today yielded its energy and excitement to a diverse array of concurrently popular styles—sour and wild ales, hazy and fruity New England–style IPAs, barrel-aged beers, and all manner of adjunct-laden beers inspired by culinary flavors. Time will tell how much staying power these current trendy styles will have, but from a beer drinker’s perspective, it’s the best of times.