How can you tell the American recession is still worrisome, despite government worker unemployment only being 4.3%?  Beer sales have fallen again.  You'd think beer sales would go up in a bad economy, like it does historically, right?  Cheap entertainment and all that.  No, that only happens for a short while, and by now things have been so persistently bad people are buying a lot more hard liquor instead.  Beer just isn't strong enough to make an emotional difference these days.

According to the recently released Beverage Information Group's 2012 Beer Handbook, the beer industry came up 35.6 million cases short in 2011, another 1.3% decline.

What are people buying instead?  The rich are buying those flavored vodkas and whiskey liqueurs or sweet reds and premium blends. The unemployed are buying less of everything and costs continuing to rise due to 'sin' taxes are not helping. Even 'light' beer lost 39.2 million cases in sales. Let's face it, if even fat guys have given up on being able to afford beer we are in trouble. Foreign brands did go up 1.3% in 2011, so the rich people who can buy imported organic food can still buy imported everything else too. 

The growth in the Craft and Imported beer categories is a bright spot and no slowdown is projected in those.  What should beer makers do?  Like seeing stats showing a college degree means higher income, and discovering that giving everyone a college degree does not work, every company shouldn't just jump into the Craft Beer segment.


We need to get these guys back to work or a whole lot of beer industry employees will be joining them.  Credit: shutterstock.com

It's too easy to say 'make a better product' when the regulatory parameters for business in the USA are already rather narrow and getting narrower but making better beer can certainly help.  Craft beer makers should be worried despite their rise; having a giant consumer set that can then migrate to specialty beer is better for the long-term than having a small market. The only reason the anti-science cranks behind California's Proposition 37 exclude alcohol (which is almost 100% GMO) is because it is a giant market and more expensive booze would get the referendum voted down 80% to 20% among the voting population.  But if the market continues to shrink, so will choices.