The talking points are out there, and the echo chamber is getting louder. “The craft-beer market has plateaued. The beer business is growing more challenging. It’s no longer a brewer’s market in craft beer.”
There’s truth to all of this, of course. The days of “if you build it, they will come” are long over for craft brewers (if they ever really existed), and today’s consumers more than ever know what they want and expect brewers to deliver. Is the market challenging? No more than every consumer market, in every sector. Competition is heated no matter what business you find yourself in, whether that’s consumer packaged goods, hospitality, or hell—even media and magazine publishing.
I can’t remember a time throughout my own career in media when the media business wasn’t “challenged.” From the mid- 1990s to the present, a spectre has hung over the media world as the “glory days” were behind us while some dim digital future lay ahead. I have, over the past 24 years of working professionally in media, had to shut down at least a dozen magazines, lay off great staff, and retire sometimes venerable brands that were no longer viable businesses. When market winds change, businesses have to proactively adjust, no matter how painful the moves may seem.