Why Younger Consumers Are Cause for Concern in Alcoholic Beverages Category

[abefroman329]

I was born in 1968 and couldn't imagine having a kid in 1999. I'm a late bloomer and never got around to being fruitful and multiplying.

I had my first kid this year.  I don't think I would have thought I would be a father for the first time at 39, either, but I think I'd rather be a geriatric parent with a stable career than a young parent with an unstable one.

[jon daly]

Maturity was more of an issue for me than money. Eventually, around when I turned around 40, I saw some of the barflies a few years older than me and decided that I wanted more from life than that. I still have an occasional drink, but it's at home or out at dinner with my wife.

[abefroman329]

Eventually, around when I turned around 40, I saw some of the barflies a few years older than me and decided that I wanted more from life than that.

Yep, or as Chris Rock put it, "you don't want to be that guy at the club.  He ain't old, he's just a little too old to be at a club."

[index]

I was born in 1968 and couldn't imagine having a kid in 1999. I'm a late bloomer and never got around to being fruitful and multiplying.

My father was born in 1959 and had me in 2002. Quite a generational gap... Baby boomer all the way to Gen Z.





On the topic of belonging to a generation, in the sense of growing up, it really boils down to your childhood experiences and the year you were born taken into consideration together, the year isn't the sole determiner. I associate with both the current generation as well as millennials, because in my earlier childhood, I had a lot of influence from younger millennial culture from my older brothers, and as such, I'm able to relate a lot with the later part of that generation, in some cases more than my current one.

[hbelkins]

I'm not a big consumer of alcoholic beverages, even less so now that I'm prone to gout, but I don't identify with any generation. I was born in December 1961. Too young to be a boomer -- and I'm sick of the jerks who blame the boomers for all of their own problems -- and not young enough to be a Gen X'er. I don't identify with any of those generations.

[english si]

- A-B and MCM spill more beer than all of these idiotic microbrewers sell.

The big multinationals also make more craft beer than the independent brewers, having brought a load of successful microbreweries and then expanding them while keeping the brand to dupe hipsters who'd care that Camden Hells lager is brought to you by the same conglomeration that brings you Stella and Budweiser, rather than simply some small business in the hipster bit of London...

[SP Cook]

Even the trendiest flavored micro beers of today are ALL a 'Back to the Future' thing - they were the norm before Prohibition.

Not exactly.  Prior to, and since Prohibition, the dominant style of beer has been "American lager".   The difference that caused the number of breweries to decline is that beer used to be a highly regional product.  A brewer had a region in which it was very dominant (with an American style lager), and it was unknown elsewhere (similar to sliced bread or dairy today). 

As transportation improved, and the media became national (it is vastly less expensive to buy ads nationally than regionally).  Over time these beers lost out to nationally advertised brands who built duplicate breweries all over the country.  The list of fallen flags (or nearly fallen as a lot of the brand names are still made for novelty sake in small numbers) is very long, but all of them were only slightly distinguishable from Budweiser.

The "craft beer" fad is a new thing.  Founded, IMHO, by people who really don't like beer and think it would be cool to make something out of some odd ingredients. 

Not that there is anything "wrong" with liking pumpkin "beer" or whatever.  Just as there is nothing wrong with the 91% market share in the beer industry taken by people who make "the good stuff".  Budweiser, Miller, and Coors.

[abefroman329]

- A-B and MCM spill more beer than all of these idiotic microbrewers sell.

The big multinationals also make more craft beer than the independent brewers, having brought a load of successful microbreweries and then expanding them while keeping the brand to dupe hipsters who'd care that Camden Hells lager is brought to you by the same conglomeration that brings you Stella and Budweiser, rather than simply some small business in the hipster bit of London...

Or, in the case of Blue Moon, created from whole cloth by a macrobrewery.

[kphoger]

IMHO,

- The whole "this generation is changing this or that business model" is just empty writing. 

+1

If the new generation doesn't want to buy what you're selling... that's kind of normal in the world of business.  Just figure out what they do want to buy and start selling that instead.

[ET21]

THen again, maybe NE2 is suggesting the the OP works for csnews.com.

It's more likely that he's being an ass for no apparent reason.

And the sky is blue, water is wet, and yes, a bear shits in the woods.

All is right in the world 

[english si]

The "craft beer" fad is a new thing.  Founded, IMHO, by people who really don't like beer and think it would be cool to make something out of some odd ingredients.

Like rice. Oh wait that's Budweiser (but not the superior Budvar that is more like the sort of stuff that "American lager" used to be before prohibition).

And all the main sellers in the US are lightly hopped - ie trying to be beer with the minimal amount of one of the two key flavourings (the other one being malt - itself tweaked with the addition of other grains in the US's best-selling beer).

Most craft beers try and keep it simple. OK, they might add something beyond the Barley, Hops, Yeast and Water, but rarely. Coffee in a coffee stout (though you can do that and chocolately flavours in the malt), etc. Pumpkin beer is like pumpkin-spiced latte - an abomination.

[abefroman329]

Like rice

Rice beer?  Oh, you mean sake.

[english si]

Like rice

Rice beer?  Oh, you mean sake.

Sake doesn't have 70% of the grain being malted barley...

[formulanone]

IMHO,

- The whole "this generation is changing this or that business model" is just empty writing. 

+1

If the new generation doesn't want to buy what you're selling... that's kind of normal in the world of business.  Just figure out what they do want to buy and start selling that instead.

Whole industries, corporations, businesses have been dying off for one reason or another; generations after generation, presumably for centuries. That's something to think about when you need a new powdered wig, a hat blocked, one's harpsichord tuned, the sharpening of a horse-drawn plow, that typewriter repaired, a tire inner tube repaired, or a daguerreotype processed. If the thought of Millennials' spending habits make you sick, there's some radium treatments for that, but first we have to take your temperature with a mercury thermometer and break out some leaches. You can post those complaints onto parchment with a quill pen, but now this seems a little too much like a dead thread.

Back on topic, maybe there's a little less money to spend on beer and maybe the twenty-somethings do that once or twice, and then they get over it. Or there's weed over them there Rockies. Maybe they don't want to drink Dad's beer, and would rather patronize a local place. Or maybe ID laws are actually getting enforced. If the massive increase in the count of breweries and beer culture is anything to go by, the alcohol dollar is just going away from the C-store. Maybe getting slovenly drunk at 10am isn't as classy as it was before. Tighter drinking restrictions. Maybe it took a few thousand deaths to finally slow down the buzzed/drunk driving stupidity.

[jon daly]

I would love to wear a powdered wig.

[abefroman329]

Hat blocks are a bad example - Wikipedia sez they're making a comeback thanks to hats being popular amongst, you guessed it, millennials.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Heh. Maybe it's the Upper Midwesterner in me, but this all sounds like clickbait to me. I don't drink much because I don't like the taste, but most of my friends do.

[Takumi]

The "craft beer" fad is a new thing.  Founded, IMHO, by people who really don't like beer and think it would be cool to make something out of some odd ingredients.

Like rice. Oh wait that's Budweiser (but not the superior Budvar that is more like the sort of stuff that "American lager" used to be before prohibition).

And all the main sellers in the US are lightly hopped - ie trying to be beer with the minimal amount of one of the two key flavourings (the other one being malt - itself tweaked with the addition of other grains in the US's best-selling beer).

Most craft beers try and keep it simple. OK, they might add something beyond the Barley, Hops, Yeast and Water, but rarely. Coffee in a coffee stout (though you can do that and chocolately flavours in the malt), etc. Pumpkin beer is like pumpkin-spiced latte - an abomination.

Spot on. What people like him tend to miss is that we don't want what the macros are selling, end of story. There was a regional brewery whose beers I enjoyed that sold out to A-B a couple years ago. Haven't bought one of their beers since.

[MNHighwayMan]

Heh. Maybe it's the Upper Midwesterner in me, but this all sounds like clickbait to me. I don't drink much because I don't like the taste, but most of my friends do.

Precisely. It's clickbait targeted at older people who are afraid of the changes the younger generation(s) are bringing.

[formulanone]

Hat blocks are a bad example - Wikipedia sez they're making a comeback thanks to hats being popular amongst, you guessed it, millennials.

Don't forget, it's entirely possible anyone to state on Wikipedia that I-95 still has a gap.

[english si]

one's harpsichord tuned

Piano tuners should be able to provide that service. My friend with a harpsichord does it himself though, so I'm not certain.

a tire inner tube repaired

You can buy patch kits, and I imagine that you could pay someone to do it. Though when I took my bike to the bike shop to fix various issues caused by not using it due to multiple punctures that I couldn't patch myself, they just replaced the inner tube. Or are you talking cars? Certainly its a similar job and if you had a vintage car, you'd be able to find someone to do it.

Many of the things you talk about are either easy enough that an odd job man can do it, not niche enough that jobs that are pretty much the same exist. Or they are returned/never left as something traditional or artisan or whatever.

You'd have better luck with stuff like "respool cassette tapes", "clean the head of your VHS machine", etc that are things that are much more recent, not good quality, superceded, and unlikely to make a comeback.

I would love to wear a powdered wig.

Go into The Law in England and be good at it. Judges and high-end barristers are required to wear them in court.

Spot on. What people like him tend to miss is that we don't want what the macros are selling, end of story. There was a regional brewery whose beers I enjoyed that sold out to A-B a couple years ago. Haven't bought one of their beers since.

Err, that isn't what I was saying.

In that post, I was taking SP Cook's gripe about craft beer being for people who don't like the taste of beer and need stuff added to it, and pointing out that America's best selling beer has an added ingredient, and the whole style it belongs to - the one he's defending - seeks to have as little of one of the two main beer flavours as possible.

I don't think the craft beer thing is specifically against the big guys - there is that element for sure (local, artisan, etc) among some, but earlier posts of mine in this thread discuss how most people just care about the premium nature of the product / the experience, and aren't too fussed about brand ownership - otherwise the craft beers owned by multinationals wouldn't sell - especially not, say, Hop House 13 - which has 'Guinness' branding all over it (compare, say, Goose Bay, which keeps its own brand).

OK, sure, its quite a sizeable number of people you can wind up by pointing out that the "Camden Hells Lager" they are drinking is owned by AB InBev, and some of it has been known to not have been brewed in that hipster suburb. But most drinkers of it don't care because it is a good product that they like. Last beer festival I did, the microbrewery sourcing the beers for it picked that lager, Guinness (it was St Paddy's Day) as well as three ales of their own and five ales from other microbreweries.

The not brewed on location is usually more controversial than the multinational ownership. As an example, see the controversy where now-ubiquitous UK Real Ale 'Doom Bar' underwent a hasty expansion of production about 7-8 years ago, leading to some bottles containing beer made outside Cornwall (apparently other breweries in the county was fine) due to the need to outsource while they expanded their original brewery, and compare it to the lack of outcry when MolsonCoors brought the brewery 3-4 years ago. The last one I had (a few months ago) tasted just as good as the first one I had, half a lifetime ago overlooking the sand bank that names the beer.

Also see, with the big names, the move for UK Guinness to be the 'real' stuff brewed in Dublin rather than stuff brewed in the UK to the exact same recipe.

[Takumi]

In that post, I was taking SP Cook's gripe about craft beer being for people who don't like the taste of beer and need stuff added to it, and pointing out that America's best selling beer has an added ingredient, and the whole style it belongs to - the one he's defending - seeks to have as little of one of the two main beer flavours as possible.

Fair enough. His post was bad enough that there were multiple points to be picked apart. I find American lagers to be too bland for my taste. I'm not saying I particularly need India Pale levels of hoppiness in a beer, but I just do not like lighter beers that don't have a noticeable hop flavor to them.

[abefroman329]

In that post, I was taking SP Cook's gripe about craft beer being for people who don't like the taste of beer and need stuff added to it, and pointing out that America's best selling beer has an added ingredient, and the whole style it belongs to - the one he's defending - seeks to have as little of one of the two main beer flavours as possible.

Fair enough. His post was bad enough that there were multiple points to be picked apart. I find American lagers to be too bland for my taste. I'm not saying I particularly need India Pale levels of hoppiness in a beer, but I just do not like lighter beers that don't have a noticeable hop flavor to them.

Once you realize it's just a form of reverse-snobbery, that it's merely SP Cook sneering at people he thinks are sneering at him, it all makes sense.

[Takumi]

In that post, I was taking SP Cook's gripe about craft beer being for people who don't like the taste of beer and need stuff added to it, and pointing out that America's best selling beer has an added ingredient, and the whole style it belongs to - the one he's defending - seeks to have as little of one of the two main beer flavours as possible.

Fair enough. His post was bad enough that there were multiple points to be picked apart. I find American lagers to be too bland for my taste. I'm not saying I particularly need India Pale levels of hoppiness in a beer, but I just do not like lighter beers that don't have a noticeable hop flavor to them.

Once you realize it's just a form of reverse-snobbery, that it's merely SP Cook sneering at people he thinks are sneering at him, it all makes sense.

Yeah. Some instances, it's almost understandable, but this isn't one of them. I could add to that, but it'd derail/potentially lock the thread.

[english si]

I find American lagers to be too bland for my taste.

I can drink them (and Aussie/British lagers of a similar ilk), but I'd rather drink something else. Even Becks (an AB InBev product and the most bland German beer) is an improvement.

I'm not saying I particularly need India Pale levels of hoppiness in a beer

That's my least favourite thing about the US Craft Beer movement: the MUHR HOPS!!! of it all. It doesn't help that, US hops taste different to UK ones that were originally used to make IPA - 'grapefruit notes' is not something I particularly like in a beer. The strong flavours of New World Hops / high IBU are more tolerable when balanced out with stronger malty flavours of a Ruby or Dark beer, but there's an obsession with going with something akin to eating flowers, especially with the American-style IPAs, but creeping into classic English bitter styles too because of the fad for US-style craft beer here.

Coming in close second is the MUHR ABV of it all (though that's changing). There's no reason why you can't have high ABV beer, but it shouldn't need to be a big dick contest and many styles would be better suited to being more at the 4% mark, rather than the 6% mark - if for the ability to drink more of them before becoming to intoxicated, if nothing else.