2023 beer resolutions, part 1
2023 beer resolutions, part 1
What are brewery owners, brewers, and other luminaries expecting to see in 2023. Here is a compilation of their predictions and resolutions.
Woo boy. Let’s exhale and just marvel at the fact that we all survived and thrived in 2022. This coming year promises to be just as wild, eventful, and tumultuous.
Predictions and resolutions are two traditions that continue to be fun and maddening, especially in the beer (and beverage) industry. For the sixth consecutive year, the last five of which came at the Democrat and Chronicle, I texted nearly every beer contact in my phone and asked three simple questions:
What is your beer prediction for 2023?
What is your beer resolution?
Where do you see the market headed?
Photo: A beautiful beer flight at Silver Lake Brewing Project in Perry, Wyoming County.
Below, you will find a sampling of the responses. And you can expect at least two more parts in this series as I was again inundated and heartened by the level and detail of responses received. There has truly never been a better time to beer a beer nerd than there is right now. We have a nearly overwhelming amount of choices. I’ll include my predictions in the last published part.
Garrett Meakin, Grow Brewing owner/brewer
As inflationary pressures continue, I expect to see breweries using creative ways to fight back. I think it will FINALLY be in the form of lagers and twists on other sessionable/lower-hopped styles. My wacky prediction is that brewers in our market will work with local vineyards/hop growers to create a sustainable, competitive hop alternative like that of the grape derivative products coming out of New Zealand to keep local beer flavor evolving. Lastly, our resolution at Grow is to finally be able to answer our number one question on all platforms: Where is your tasting room?
John Urlaub, Rohrbach Brewing owner
DTC (direct to consumers) sales will continue to grow in popularity. Amazon has forever changed the retail landscape. Ordering your favorite beer or something more adventurous from the comfort of your home will continue to trend up.
IPAs will not only continue to dominate the craft market but also grow its market share in terms of total craft. However, the competitive market will encourage breweries to continue to innovate. 2023 will see some creative beer varieties released and unique new beers tapped.
RTDs (ready-to-drink spirit-based drinks) will continue to grow in popularity. This will be a challenge to craft breweries.
While low/no alcohol and healthier beers current market share is small it will continue to grow.
Evan Lewis, Ægir Bryggeri (Norway) owner
So here are a few thoughts for the new year. Bear in mind that I’m really out of touch with the craft beer industry in the USA and trends there. Things in Norway go at a different pace and my views will mostly reflect our market trends.
I think that 2023 will continue to see demand for light and easy-drinking session beers like pilsners. Our customers still love their IPAs and these will continue to be popular, as will fruited IPAs. The latter is not the favorite for my brewers, who have been wondering when we will focus on beer flavored beer again. The popularity of the fruited hoppy beers has been quite a surprise the last couple of years and doesn’t show signs of waning yet.
Hard seltzer didn’t catch on over here as we hoped it would, so we’re going to stop producing it and leave that market for the big guys. The customer base here automatically assumed that a hard seltzer is a sweet sticky alcopop, not realizing it is a completely different type of product. It doesn’t help our cause that advertising alcohol isn’t legal in Norway, so we can’t even tell people about the product on social media. I predict that this segment will continue to be lackluster in our market.
Finally, we can’t ignore the fact that rising prices have affected thirst for premium products, craft beers being among them. We’ve seen that the grocery chains here are cutting higher-end beers in favor of macro products, and that sales have diminished in the craft segment. This will continue well into 2023.
Brittany Statt, graphic designer/branding consulting
I think we’ll see the trend of approachable, more sessionable (low ABV) quality beers continue. Covid did not seem to stop the slow of brewery openings, meaning competition for retailing and distribution will only get tougher. Quality product and a strong brand will be as important as ever for those looking to grow.
Photo: Beer Tree Brew’s second location is called the Factory and is located in a former department store space in Johnson City, Broome County.
Mark Grimaldi, Aurora Brewing co-owner
2023 is the year of fatigue, which I think we saw already in 2022 as well. I’m hoping for a bit of a rebound, for all of our sakes— breweries and bars and shops. 2022 felt like a beer saturation point. The pouring in of beers from other states to our local markets was insane
On the beer styles side, I think the trend is going to continue towards lower ABV beers, drier beers, and beers a little more old school. We are ecstatic about what we are doing with our West Coast-leaning IPA program and also our lower ABV New Englands, and some of our hazies that kick it a little more old school. And I think we are going to continue to see the popularity of crispy beers and lagers
I also think we as brewers are going to continue unlocking the code to thiols as we see advancements in yeasts and hops and the processes that focus on them.
AJ Noto, Abandon Brewing co-owner
The last few years everyone keeps saying the come back of the lager and in my opinion I think that it’s slowly coming true. I see a lot more breweries embracing all kinds of lager styles, including Helles, Pilsners, etc. The trend that I’m seeing that isn’t my personal favorite is the smoothie sour transition to smoothie “other.” I’m going to pass on that orange guava mango lactose cream ale. Thanks.
At Abandon, we’re planning on continuing to produce high quality traditional styles that have served us well over the years — ESBs, dark milds, saisons etc. We love our versions of traditional Belgian and other English/European styles, while also embracing all the new hops and hop delivery methods like cryo and extracts to make new and interesting IPAs. Wishing everyone a happy and prosperous 2023! Cheers!
Karl Kolbe, Pressure Drop Brewing co-owner/brewer
I believe that the consumer will start to drink more of what I would consider to be well crafted beers beers that cannot hide flaws, like beautiful light lagers and saisons and English milds and West Coast IPAs! My personal resolution for this year is to drink more of those beers that are made by our local brewers
Brian Bremer, Runaway Blue Brewing co-founder/brewer
Our resolution for Runaway Blue is to explore as many new styles/flavor combinations as we can this year.
We predict hazy IPAs continuing their popularity and a growth in total craft beer sales for the area.
Scott Denhart, Triphammer Bierwerks owner/brewer
Coming out of the last three years going forward in 2023, more and more breweries will open everywhere. Lagers/Pilsners will continue making the long slow increase in sales, but IPA will still be king. There is no such thing as a taboo ingredient such as rice/adjuncts because big breweries use it. If it makes a good beer — why not? New "styles" will come out in the never-ending search for the next big thing. Lastly, brewpubs will start to make a comeback.
Quinn Whelen, Whelen Design woodworking
NEIPAs will continue to reign supreme.
My beer resolution: Continue to step out of my comfort zone. Drink and enjoy different styles of beer. Really became a huge fan of Kolsch-style beers (especially Irondequoit Beers's summer Kolsch and Okay Beer Co.’s Rice Boi Kolsch).
Market headed locally: Hopefully we'll see more West Coast IPAss and different styles. Maybe some new side pull tap systems in breweries for Czech-style beers.
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