Craft Beer Market Trend Analysis in 2017 and Beyond

The craft beer market has, undoubtedly, become an important component in the food and beverage industry, but it is uniquely fast-paced and ever changing, making it a challenge for any publican, beer buyer or operations director to establish which styles will become the ‘next big thing’ or what trends are truly happening in the very crowded space.

Here at EeBriaTrade we adore data and we have lots of it to decipher, for example, in just a 12 month period we sold over 3,385 unique products from 400 different breweries. We also love beer, numbers, algorithms and statistics, so much so we’ve compiled an array of stats from these past 12 months of sales on our site to push through the complexity and give some clear insight into what beers are on the rise and what styles are falling by the wayside as the market continues to adapt.

Unsurprisingly, Pale Ales and IPAs still remain king and even saw growth in sales of 5 percentage points over the past year to 60% of sales, however there has been a significant shift in purchasing elsewhere showing the maturation of the market and the desire for consumers to keep up with the new and exciting beers that the UK brewers are turning out.

Below are some of the statistics that stand out for us from the last 12 months.

Strength in numbers:

• Over 11% of total craft beer sales are of beers 7% ABV or more. This stat was a mere 5.3% of total sales this time last year and as more and more venues begin to offer one third and two-third pint measures, publicans can now afford to buy in higher ABV beers and still retain a profitable margin.
• Across all styles the overall average ABV sold grew to 4.91% from 4.83%.

Double your money:

• The sales of Double IPAs coincidentally have nearly doubled from 4.3% to 7.3% in a 12 month period. Highlighting that consumers are looking for those hard-hitting, hoppy, juicy and chewy double IPAs.

Sour Patch:

• It’s been well-documented that as the craft beer market grows so does the popularity of more ‘challenging’ styles and sour beer styles are at the forefront of this growth. With that in mind we saw an increase of sour beer sales almost double from 3.4% to 6.4% in just a year's time.

Untraditional:

• The term ‘craft beer’ brings connotations of innovation, modernisation and pushing boundaries when it comes to the UK beer scene and the traditional beer styles that lie within it. Notably, there has been a substantial decrease in popularity of styles that would be considered ‘traditional’ in the realms of UK beer as over the past year golden, brown, red and amber ales as well as milds and bitters have seen their sales share drop by almost half (14.2% to 7.6%).

The Imperialists:

• There has been a steady growth of darker beers being sold on our site and most notably within this style Imperial Stouts stand out as their sales have more than doubled from 1.2% to 3.3% of our total sales over the past year.

Will these trends continue into 2018 or will there be a new stalwart of a beer style that rises to the top? Whatever it may be, here at EeBriaTrade we’ll be ready to churn through the numbers, decipher the digits and most importantly have them all available at www.eebriatrade.com.

All statistics were compiled over a 12 month period based on sales at the craft beer marketplace EeBriaTrade.com.

EebriaTrade, December 2017

About EeBriaTrade

EeBriaTrade is a totally different type of nationwide craft beer and cider distributor, representing over 350 of the best breweries from across the UK and abroad, with that number growing all the time.

Unlike other distributors, it operates entirely online and uses a unique marketplace model. No warehouse is required as everything sold on EeBriaTrade is listed and priced by the breweries and then shipped directly to the customer from the brewery, using their nationwide distribution network. All the logistics and customer service are handled by EeBriaTrade, so there is one point of contact and a specialised account manager to deal with despite more than 400 breweries being available.

For more information, please contact:
Matt Stokes, Head Of Trade
E: press@eebria.com