Breweries have been courting wine drinkers for more than a decade, with modest success to show for it. Despite the repeated promise that sour beer was going to “convert” wine drinkers, there’s not been a mass movement of wine aficionados toward beer appreciation.
Yes, beer has found a place on some—though far from all—fine-dining menus, and most wine shops these days make space for at least a handful of interesting beers. Yet beer remains an afterthought at most high-end wine festivals, and the David Chang attitude—“I love cheap, watery swill”—is still alive and well among chefs and sommeliers.
“This feels like an age-old struggle in the beer world,” says Jeff Stuffings, cofounder of Austin’s Jester King. “Garrett Oliver was fighting this battle 20 years ago. Not to sound bitter, but we tried for a while to really make the case for wild ale—and specifically fruit-fermented wild ale—with the wine crowd and got, I think, lukewarm results.”
Major shifts in wine consumption, though, could offer a fresh chance for beer to reintroduce itself, particularly to a new breed of wine drinkers. Wine consumption in the United States has been falling since 2017, according to global beverage data firm IWSR, as traditional wine struggles to connect with younger drinkers.
Natural wine, on the other hand, has been on the upswing, changing drinkers’ perceptions of what wine is, how it tastes, and how it’s consumed. To those who enjoy it, natural wine’s appeal and story are more beer-adjacent than mainstream wine. Enjoyed for its approachability, less pretentious aesthetics, lower ABV—and, often, lower price points—natural wine is complex and attainable in a way that cracks the door open for something like craft lager or—just maybe—saisons, mixed-culture beers, and farmhouse ales.