To Win Over Younger Drinkers, It’s a Shot of YOLO, Craft Beer Chaser

The past year has been yet another challenging one for craft beer. Production continued to slow, costs went up, and thousands of breweries found themselves struggling to remain exciting to both older and newer generations.

Many of you find yourselves raising prices, slashing costs, developing RTDs, canning cocktails, seeking new distribution opportunities, and—essentially—taking shots at just about anything you can think of to remain relevant. As we settle in survival mode, widespread assumptions of growth are a vestige of a bygone era.

But survive you have. Despite doomsday rumblings and overall declines, still more breweries are opening than closing, industry jobs are increasing, and dollar sales are up. While breweries that focus on on-premise sales saw production slow in 2023—including, for the first time, taprooms as a group—and draft sales still struggled to rebound from the pandemic, over-the-bar sales opportunities remain vital to this survival.

As competition in the distribution field gets tougher—and costs climb even as drinkers reject price increases—on-premise sales of draft beer continue to offer the highest margins in craft. There’s a reason why three out of every four breweries in the United States are either brewpubs or have their own taprooms.

That’s the context for our challenge: How do we get more consumers to more consistently visit our locations for draft beer? Especially at a time when an ever-expanding array of beverage choices is competing for their attention?

[PAYWALL]

Time for a Reckoning

Many brewers have embraced the “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” mentality, shifting production to mirror trends reflected in the wider alcohol industry. Even the Great American Beer Fest has made surprising moves in this direction, allowing breweries to showcase cider, kombucha, mead, RTDs, hard soda, tea, and other malt-based beverages at their booths.

However, for those of us who prefer to double down on the specific beverage that energized our entry into the business, there has to be another way.

Rather than transform our production to keep up with a rapidly evolving alcohol sector, I think we should be focusing on ways to engage consumers to enjoy beer on their terms. Millennials and Gen Zers are obsessed with experiences, driven by the maxim of YOLO—“you only live once”—a feeling that the pandemic accelerated. They may not automatically gravitate toward the latest IPA release or the freshest lager on tap, but they are looking for something delicious to drink while they take in some live music or compete in that winner-take-all shuffleboard tournament.

Let’s face it: Craft beer isn’t cool anymore. Long gone are days when traditional beers and the new styles they inspired could seem revolutionary.

Back then, the older generation stuck to industrial lager—which meant craft was new, it was young, and it was on fire. Brewers made what they wanted to drink, and drinkers rewarded them for it. Even as its popularity grew, craft brewing’s innovative spirit led to hazy IPA, fruited sours, and a plethora of experimental offerings.

And yet … as a new generation of drinkers became acquainted with craft beer, it was already ubiquitous and increasingly conventional. They loved the bold flavors of the new styles more than the narratives behind them, and brewers found themselves increasingly at the mercy of the new drinker. Beer dinners and tastings were cancelled, imports slowed dramatically, and glassware became an afterthought—even while thousands of new breweries were opening, each one increasingly giving the drinker what they wanted: the styles that continued to sell and kept their businesses going.

As craft beer went even further into the mainstream, new drinkers got distracted. They followed their interest in flavors right out of the category, leaving countless brewers without the customers who had helped them flourish. Faced with this dilemma, many began producing flavor-forward beer alternatives to hold on, while others recommitted to the classic craft styles that had gotten them interested in the first place. Neither are quite prepared to engage new drinkers based on their output alone.

The Millennials and Gen Zers aren’t looking for more from their beverage—they’re looking for more than their beverage.

Beer for Experiences

Doom-spending began in the pandemic, when futures were less certain and carpe diem ruled the day. That seismic shift in consumer behavior has persisted, with memorable experiences taking the focus off daily distractions.

Many eschew dining and drinking out all week so they can take off on weekend travel excursions instead. Live music attendance, like international travel, is way up. Experiences allow this generation to maximize their lives in real time, and beverages are merely along for the ride.

It’s no longer enough to just make great beer—hazy IPA, long-matured lager, pastry stout, cask bitter, or otherwise. The days of mass appeal are drawing to a close. However, our industry is populated with scrappy, innovative types who are becoming more aware, day by day, that a new demographic demands a new approach—and it’s one that I think can balance satisfying new business realities with maintaining authenticity.

To draw in new guests and convert them to craft beer, creating opportunities for memorable experiences is the first step. Once we get the customer into our locations, they’ll accompany their experience with whatever you’re passionately brewing at the time. We’ve already learned many of these lessons—from food trucks and brewpub kitchens to arcade games, trivia, and acoustic sets, breweries have been expanding their experiential offerings in recent years. Now, however, we must get more creative.

Educational experiences are coming back in vogue, but we can think beyond brewer panels and vertical beer tastings. Some possibilities:

• Work with local sommeliers and mixologists to round out knowledge-based activations beyond beer—while maintaining a focus on the stories that inform remarkable drinks.
• Invite renowned chefs—and their clientele—into your breweries to taste dishes in a new environment, paired with high-margin draft beers.
• Connect with fellow brewers and bars to create scavenger hunt–style pub crawls fueled by delicious brews (such as our own recent “pub golf tour,” above).
• Host fundraisers, book readings, club meetups, record-release parties, dance nights—anything and everything to get new guests to drink what you love to brew.

Build regulars. Keep reinventing the on-premise experience and what makes it fun and enticing. Don’t just attend to Untappd ratings—respond to all reviews online, positive or negative. Whether it’s Yelp, Google, TripAdvisor, OpenTable, or any of the myriad review sites, consistent engagement will keep existing guests excited to return, and it will make new guests excited to see what you’re all about.

By providing our guests with exciting experiences and attracting new drinkers, we can adjust our business models without forsaking the styles that inspired us to start brewing in the first place. Let’s create new communities of customers—initially excited by taproom and brewpub experiences—who will grow to love the beers that flow along with them.

After all, you only live once.