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| Paul Sangster, top right, speaks to beer drinkers at Rip Current Brewing’s First Anniversary earlier this year |
TOO MANY CRAFT BEER BREWERIES?—Guest Blog by Mark
Figueroa in West Coaster Beer Magazine--Many tasting rooms are standing-room only these
days. Bottle shops can’t keep beer on shelves. Breweries are brewing practically
non-stop.
Yep, the craft beer craze
just keeps getting crazier, especially right here in San Diego County, where
there are now 72 brew houses in operation. Only two years ago, the number was
less than half that. And with many more in the planning stages, San Diego could
top the century mark by next year. The numbers are impressive and so is the
beer. But the meteoric rise of craft beer has some people contemplating
gravitational pull, meaning what goes up, must come down.
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| Sean DeWitt, left, Brewmaster, Coronado Brewing Co. and Greg Koch, CEO, Stone Brewing Co., during SDBW 2012′s Beer Garden @ The Lodge at Torrey Pines |
So is the craft beer boom
heading toward a bust?
Leave it to Greg Koch, San
Diego’s voluminous craft beer crusader, to put all this talk in context. “How
many mass extinctions have we had in the history of our planet? I think five,”
said the CEO and co-founder of Stone Brewing Co. “I think you can say that human existence
isn’t permanent, let alone the rise of the current growth rate of craft beer.
Yes, there’s a threshold, it’s between .01 percent and 99.999 percent. We know
it’s somewhere.”
But where? And when?
“Everyone is scrambling for
volume right now – adding equipment and tanks at a breakneck pace with no eye
for a possible snarl ahead,” Koch continued. “And I’m not saying there is a
snarl ahead. I am not predicting the future. But I do think there is going to
be a bump in the road because there always is a bump in the road.”
Whatever obstacles the
industry may face eventually, many brewers and fans believe this time it will
be much different than the rise and fall of craft in the 1990s.
Charles Leask, a longtime
craft beer enthusiast and tasting room regular in San Diego, said today’s beer
consumers are more evolved than they were 15-20 years ago. And so are the
brewers.
“Consumers are a lot more
educated about beer,” said the Oceanside resident. “And if they’re not, at
least they are willing to try and learn.”
As for the brewers, Leask
sees a lot of camaraderie that he didn’t see before.
“There’s a lot of people
here who are genuinely concerned and make a major effort to help other people
in the business,” he said. “Everyone is helpful to each other instead of being
competitors. Sure, there will be fallout, but I don’t think the bubble is going
to burst again. If the beer is good and the tasting rooms treat people well,
people will come back.”
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| Donna & Charles Leask at SD History Center’s Bottle & Kegged premiere |
Speaking of taste, that is
much different nowadays too. And that commitment to quality is playing a huge
role in the growing popularity of craft beer. While the law of averages
dictates that not every brewery is going to produce award-winning beer, Koch
argues that the percentage of mediocrity today is lower than it was in years
past.
“(Low quality) drove the
saturation point in a negative direction to a point of a crash,” he said.
“Today, we’re willing to go somewhere and try something we don’t know and get
surprised if the beer sucks. Our expectation is that it will be at least not
bad and maybe even awesome.”
Paul Sangster, co-owner of
Rip Current Brewing in San Marcos, is in his first year of operation and said
he’s not concerned with volume at this point. For Rip Current, quality comes
first.
“If we were to make only
500 barrels, but that beer was really good, I’d be happy with that,” he said.
Todd Davis, a commercial
real estate agent who specializes in San Diego’s craft beer market, agrees that
quality will go a long way in sustaining the popularity of craft.
“As long as breweries continue to make better
beer, I don’t think saturation is going to be as big a problem as some people
make it out to be,” said the Cardiff resident. “It’s great knowing you don’t
have to drive a half-hour to find a good brewery.”
Added Sangster: “Look back
at the days before Prohibition. It seemed every neighborhood had its own local
brewery. I don’t think breweries, even in San Diego, have reached that number
yet.”
So maybe all this talk
about boom or bust isn’t necessary right now. Maybe the fans, the ultimate
beneficiaries, just sit back and enjoy the ride for however long it lasts. If
you ask Koch, he says absolutely not.
“If you want it to last
longer, then being passive isn’t what you want to do,” he said. “Help in the
navigation. Actively pay attention, lobby and support with intent, knowledge
and education. And a lot of people are doing that. The consumer doesn’t have to
take on that responsibility, but if they do, the industry will be better off
because the industry will always be consumer-driven.”
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