U.S. beer consumption is headed in two different directions. So-called craft beer from brewpubs and micro-breweries is rising in popularity while people are drinking less of the light lager produced by the big beer companies. With more than 3,150 micro- and craft breweries in business across the United States, “it is not hard to argue that the American craft beer industry is experiencing a renaissance,” write four USDA analysts. The surge has implications for U.S. barley growers despite the small share – 7.8 percent in 2014 – held by craft beer in overall U.S. beer production.
Craft brewers use three to seven times the amount of malt barley and malt products to produce a barrel of beer than do the mainline brewers. “If current trends continue, expanded craft production and the corresponding demand for malt and malt products has the potential to fully offset declining noncraft use and potentially reverse declines in industrial use for malt and, by extension, domestic malt barley,” say analysts Jennifer Bond, Tom Capehart, Edward Allen and Gene Kim. Because of the changing relationship in malt barley used to produce beer, they describe a new method for forecasting barley usage by USDA that pays attention to each segment of the brewing and spirits industry.