Vibes Versus Numbers: The Real State of Craft Beer
Brewers Association President Bart Watson at a media event at CBC
On the first day of the Craft Brewers Conference, Brewers Association President and CEO Bart Watson held a breakfast with members of the media. I recorded the event and took detailed notes. Bart started with a small recap of the state of beer and his organization, and then fielded questions for most of the session.
Two comments struck me. In his opening statement, Bart tried to strike a positive note, saying “This year the vibe is positive. It feels like we’re coming out the other side.” Then, near the end of the breakfast, he encouraged us to consider writing more “happy stories.” For the most part, the session yielded little new information. And, despite these comments, I wasn’t picking up a lot of positive news.
Bart is no longer the just-the-facts BA economist who reports the numbers. Now he’s the head of a trade organization in a wobbling industry. The brewery members of the organization have been struggling for a good half-decade now, and everybody really wants to see some positive signs. With a bit more than a week to reflect on the CBC, I think I see what’s going on here. The vibes and the numbers may be going in different directions, but they may both be correct.
The numbers are bad. Let’s acknowledge that. If you squint, I guess you can see some green shoots in the numbers. In their report for the first quarter of 2026, Fintech reported that beer sales are up for the year over 2024 and 2025. Craft is down, but—and this counts as good news—just barely. Circana reported similar findings. For the first time in 20 months, the NBWA’s Beer Purchaser Index finally hit 50 this year. (The BPI measures expected distributor demand; over 50 means an expanding segment, under 50 is co tracking.) The craft segment is still in the dumps—but it’s higher than it was in 2025! If that’s the good news, it’s exceptionally weak tea.
Let’s review some of the numbers the BA released on 2025’s performance. They’re bad:
The craft beer segment was down just over 5%.
Brewery closings (481) exceeded openings (300).
60% of breweries made less beer in 2025 than 2024; only 39% made more.
Breweries are currently using only 55% of their total capacity.
Hop acreage was down 5% in 2025.
Again, not great, and this doesn’t even price in the storm on the horizon if Trump can’t get the Straight of Hormuz open.
An Inadvertent Trap
So where are the positive vibes coming from? This was one of the curious things about Bart’s session with the media: he didn’t really highlight any. As we ticked through the topics: the recent declines in attendance at the Craft Brewers Conference and GABF; the decline of the American Homebrewers Association; the wind-down of Brewers Publication, the BA’s in-house book publisher; all the industry trends. These were not especially happy topics.
I’m just a simple country beer blogger, but I think the Brewers Association needs to have a better comms strategy for why things are positive than “the vibes are good.” Overall volume numbers are not good, and ain’t nuthin gonna change that reality. So what positive stories does the BA expect journalists to cover? I hope in future years Bart has a few ideas handy. Because there are positives.
Starting twenty years ago, just after the Association of Brewers merged with the Brewers’ Association of America to create the BA, Craft beer went on a tear. Each year brought stories of growth, and naturally the BA touted that success. It was a seductively potent story. Craft beer is growing. It validated everything breweries and the BA were doing. Because of the message’s potency, it became part of craft beer’s brand. In an overall beer industry of flat or declining sales, one segment sparkles with success. Over time, growth became a bigger and bigger part of the messaging strategy. (No shade: there’s not a comms pro alive who wouldn’t jump on the story of 10% growth.)
Now that orientation towards commercial success has become a millstone Bart has to drag into meetings like the one with the media. If growth was the affirmation of craft beer’s value, what does contraction say about the industry? It was an inadvertent trap the BA laid for itself decades ago.
Assessing Success Differently
Again, simple country blogger, but I would recommend decoupling the emphasis on industry performance from the value of craft beer. This is where those positive stories come in. Craft beer isn’t a widget, reducible to aggregate demand. When I wear my other hat for Celebrate Oregon Beer, I see how brewpubs in small towns have become the center of public life, critical glue bringing members of the community together. Their volumes are tiny and, if success is only measured by barrelage, ignorable. But to the communities they serve, the local brewery is often priceless.
I look at the quality and availability of local beer and I marvel. Partly this is a function of living in Oregon, but mostly it has to do with my experience. I have been drinking beer since the 1980s. I’ve watched little breweries evolve. The average brewer’s knowledge of beer history, world brewing methods, and brewery best practices is an order of magnitude greater than it was in the 80s and 90s. The quality of beer has likewise experienced a quantum shift. Our beer is so good that it is now imitated worldwide. That’s amazing!
Finally, the BA has fallen into the trap of equating sales with cultural salience. Since the craft segment is just 15% of the beer market, it must follow that its cultural impact is marginal. Wrong! The arrival of small breweries has completely transformed drinking culture over the past fifty years. The members of the Brewers Association are the architect of a palate shift of a kind that almost never happens.
A big part of this has been craft beer’s success in expanding the demographics of the people who make and drink beer, which is another incredible achievement. Imagine if the Brewers Association included stats that reflected these changes in their yearly wrap-up. The percentage of people of color working in the industry; the percentage of women. The number of towns under 5,000 served by a brewery. It would be great to see polls on who drinks craft beer. Not only would it contrast the numbers we see in beer-drinking overall, but it would create a baseline for growth. These data don’t exist, so no one reports on them.
Every year on the 4th of July, I celebrate Independents Day, highlighting the fact that basically everything beer fans care about is sparked or tended by a small brewery. They’re the ones who created IPAs; they’re also the ones serving Czech lagers on LUKR faucets. They preserve and they innovate. That’s true whether the market is down 5% or up ten. I have literally never heard this message come from the BA.
A reporter at CNN or The New York Times is not going to cover any of those stories unless they’re given the data and potential narrative framework. Telling a reporter the vibes are good may pique their interest, but to get them to write about the real positives, the Brewers Association needs to expand its definition of what success looks like—and back it up with data that measures something besides dollars. Small breweries are continuing to power broad cultural shifts in America. That’s why we feel good vibes even if sales are down. Tell those stories.