In 1978, President Jimmy Carter signed H.R. 1337 into law, a bill that ultimately made legal what many had been doing in private for eons– homebrewing! Since this time, an activity once viewed by some as unwholesome and detrimental to society has come to be accepted as another healthy hobby practiced by people from myriad backgrounds. The popularity of homebrewing has spurred an entire industry of ingredient and equipment manufacturers, brick-and-morter as well as online retail shops, and both print and online publications. Even before legalization, people began coming together to talk about homebrew and share their creations, forming what would eventually become a very long list of clubs dedicated to the craft. As ingredients got better and knowledge of the process improved, more and more beer lovers began jumping on the DIY bandwagon, joining clubs, and contributing to what I believe is one of the most uniquely awesome communities around.

Homebrewing wouldn’t be where it is today without the American Homebrewers Association who is responsible for contributing to the rapid growth of the hobby, ensuring people in all 50 states in America can legally make beer at home, and throwing one hell of a conference! As a huge supporter of this organization, I’m privileged that AHA Director Gary Glass agreed to share his view on the current state of homebrewing!

On The Current State of Homebrewing

| GARY GLASS |

For the homebrewer, there has never been a better time to be a homebrewer. With the explosion in homebrewing over the past decade, there are now at least 1.2 million homebrewers in the United States, meaning approximately one in 200 adults in the country are homebrewers. To get a sense for just how rapidly homebrewing has grown, we can look at American Homebrewers Association membership which has nearly quintupled since 2006 from 9700 members to over 46,000 members at the start of 2016.

Much of the recent growth in homebrewing has come from Millennials getting into brewing. The beginning of the upward trend in homebrewing started right around the time that the oldest of the Millennial generation were coming of legal drinking age. Now Millennial homebrewers outnumber any other generation, even though the oldest of the Millennials are only around 35 years old. Millennials are the most diverse generation ever, which bodes well for a hobby that has traditionally been made up of mostly white males, and as a result, we now have more women and minorities participating in homebrewing.

Homebrewers today have a wider selection of ingredients than ever before. There are now well over 100 varieties each of hops, malt, and yeast for homebrewers to choose from. That means there are far more options for creating new and exciting beers at home. More recently, a number of new homebrew equipment manufacturers have popped up offering pro-level equipment options to homebrewers.

Perhaps more important than the variety of ingredients and equipment available is the vast amount of information now available to new homebrewers. With many websites (including ours www.HomebrewersAssociation.org), podcasts, and forums (including our AHA Forum) dedicated to homebrewing, it is easy for those looking to get into homebrewing to obtain all the information they need to succeed right from the start. With this access to information, new homebrewers are advancing much more rapidly into all-grain brewing technics—in fact many new homebrewers are bypassing beginner extract kits all together and jumping into all-grain from the start. The result is that a much higher portion of the homebrewer population now brews all-grain than in the past.

Since we are on the topic of easy access to information, the AHA will be launching a new mobile app called Brew Guru™ for Apple and Android devices that will make it much easier for homebrewers to access content and for AHA members to access benefits. Plus it’ll have a kick ass brewery/homebrew shop locator.

The meteoric growth in homebrewing we saw starting a decade ago has slowed over the past couple of years. The AHA tracks changes in revenue at homebrew shops from year to year to keep a finger on the pulse of homebrewing in the US. Last year was the first year since the AHA started surveying shops back in 2008 that we saw a decline (on average, shops were down 3.2% in 2015). There are several factors involved in the declining revenue for homebrew supply shops, and it isn’t entirely clear that the revenue figures correlate to a decline in the number of people participating in homebrewing. What is clear in the data is that homebrewers on average are brewing less frequently than they were a few years ago.

The decline in frequency of homebrewing is not all that surprising. With more homebrewers taking on all-grain brewing—which requires more time than brewing with extracts—it may be harder for today’s homebrewers to find the time to brew. The declining unemployment rate is also a factor. The Brewers Association’s chief economist Bart Watson found that there is a remarkably direct correlation between white male adult unemployment and Google searches for how to homebrew.

Then of course there is the explosion of new craft breweries in this country, surpassing 4,600 earlier this year and growing at a rate of around two per day. We all know that homebrewers are the biggest supporters of their local breweries, and with so many new breweries opening up, there’s a lot of craft beer that homebrewers must now consume. Assuming that most homebrewers aren’t just drinking more beer because there are new breweries in town, the net result is that homebrewers are choosing to brew less frequently or in smaller quantities.

Despite the slow-down in frequency of brewing, there is no shortage of interest in homebrewing. Recent research conducted by the AHA shows that around 41 percent of craft beer drinkers are interested in homebrewing. That’s around 19 million U.S. residents. Our research also points to a change in attitude around homebrewing for those just getting into brewing at home. New brewers today aren’t as likely dive in and make homebrewing a lifestyle, instead it will be one activity among others that they participate in.

There are two major barriers to entry for those 19 million craft beer-drinking, would-be homebrewers. First is a belief that homebrewing is complicated and takes a lot of investment in equipment. This belief likely stems from the fact that most of those people know homebrewers and the ways of us uber-geek homebrewers can be intimidating. Second is a belief that homebrewing takes a lot of time, probably also foster by the fact that most of us existing homebrewers are brewing all-grain. So, if your neighbor wants to join you in making a batch sometime, consider easing her/him in with a simple extract batch brewed on your stove top.

Okay, all this writing has made me thirsty. I think it’s time for me to relax, not worry, and have a homebrew.

| GREG |

Having only been brewing for about four years, I’m not going to pretend to have the breadth of knowledge and experience needed to adequately tackle a topic as big as the current state of homebrewing, so I’ll keep this somewhat brief. My opinion is informed only by attending countless brew club meetings and as many beer related events as possible since getting hooked by this hobby.

I haven’t seen much change in terms of attendance levels or participation in homebrew related activities. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Since I first entered the scene, I was blown away by just how enthusiastic and passionate brewers were for their favorite pastime. Brewing wasn’t just a hobby for them, it was an adventure, a lifestyle. To this day, I can see that homebrewing still inspires the same amazement and wonder that I myself felt when I first started my journey. Attendance levels may not be changing much, but the passion is still there.

I am without a doubt strongly biased by my connection to Brülosophy, but I really feel like I am beginning to see a shift in attitude towards embracing more non-traditional brew methods. Brewing has always been an experimental wonderland, but one of the reasons I joined Brülosophy was because of all the unverified dogma that brewers adhered to. These days, I am definitely feeling a shift away from strict traditional brewing practices being the norm toward a more open and experimental mindset. Brewers are far less dismissive of strange new techniques like quick lagers and BIAB that were once ridiculed, with many now eager to give them a try. Increased experimentation and development of new homebrew-scale techniques can only benefit the homebrewing community, and is therefore an encouraging sign for the future of the hobby.

Overall, I very much like where things are headed. I hope 10 years from now to see the same wide-eyed enthusiasm for homebrewing as I do today, and I’m excited to see just how the hobby continues to rapidly evolve.

| JAKE |

It’s interesting for me to think about this topic since up until 2013 I had no concept of what the state of homebrewing was, as that’s when I jumped headlong into the hobby. I still really don’t have a good basis for it, but from what I’ve been able to piece together, it appears homebrew was in a state of fiefdoms from inception to the mid-late 2000’s various pockets of strong homebrewing communities such as the San Francisco Bay area, Minnesota, and a few others. This seems to have changed around the time The Brewing Network and various internet forums hit the scene, giving homebrewers an avenue to collaborate and learn from others regardless of whether they lived in small-town Iowa or the rural south. When I first got into homebrewing, I attended various local club events and felt a strong sense of community, though with my busy schedule, I pretty much stuck to listening to podcasts, reading books, and collaborating with friends. Sometime later, I discovered the Reddit Homebrewing community and have been more active in the wider world of the homebrew community ever since.

This brings me to where I see the state of homebrewing today. I think we’ve grown a lot in the last ten years as a community, we’ve gotten much better, much more scientific in our approach, and much more questioning of conventional wisdom that may or may not be applicable to our scale. The early homebrew celebrities are still there and still providing us with some amazing information. In fact, in a recent call I was a part of, I was challenged with a comment from John Palmer about ways of looking at a specific topic that I had never considered before, it was awesome! I continue to strive to learn as much as I can from those who came before me and hope to give back as much knowledge as they’ve given me. And I think we’re really getting there. I don’t know when exactly it happened, but sometime in the last five years I noticed a definite shift in the homebrew community from, “Ok, we’re all gleaning what we can from these stalwarts” to “We know what we’re doing and, as a community, feel comfortable challenging convention and growing on our own path.”

Going forward, I see the state of homebrewing continuing to evolve and drive the changes we see in the beer industry as a whole. We have an awesome community that freely shares ideas, methods, and experiences that I see as a stark contrast to the wider beer world, which appears to be in a maturation/consolidation mode. As the wider beer world continues to go down that route, I think our community will become a beacon for those looking towards innovation and experimentation, and I couldn’t be happier at this prospect. While most of us will probably never be seen as an authority on homebrewing, nor do I think many of us want to be that, I think as a community we’re growing towards a collective authority. The free sharing of information and generally great attitude of homebrewers are going to continue to make this the best hobby around. I am excited to be around for this great time as we take the torch and continue on the great tradition laid out by the greats before us.

| MARSHALL |

As someone who fantasizes about living in a world where every neighbor is pouring beer they made themselves, news of an apparent decline sucks and led me to consider what might be at play, my opinion based on observations of and experiences with the homebrewing scene over the last 13 years, so it could be way off.

I got my first skateboard when I was 3 or 4 years old, it was actually a hand-me-down from a neighbor who’d gotten a new one. The deck was wide and curvy, the underside edges lined with hard plastic strips, and it was hefty. I was too young to be good, opting to cruise down not-very-steep hills on my knees mostly, but I always enjoyed the sport and couldn’t get enough Thrashin’ or Gleaming The Cube. Then things started to change, street skating became more popular and deck shapes began to adapt to make accomplishing certain tricks possible. The sport was evolving from what many began referring to as “old school” to a more modern “new school” approach, and since then skateboarding has grown immensely. To me, one of the coolest things is that many of the old school greats like Tony Hawk, Steve Caballero, and Rodney Mullen not only were integral in motivating the evolution of the sport, but embraced it and will go down in history as some of the world’s best new school skaters.

And so it goes with homebrewing, at least that’s what it seems to me. Rather than old and new, I prefer the terms traditional and modern, it feels more contextually relevant. And just like with skateboarding, while some of the greats who have been around for awhile will choose to stick with tradition, many others will utilize the incredible amount of information gleaned from traditional brewing to inform a more modern approach. Through experimentation with ingredients and process, modern homebrewers are forging ahead on a path laid by those who came before them, the proverbial baton being passed.

I’m not sure how this would impact homebrewing’s appeal and if it speaks to the apparent decline noted by the AHA, but times of transition can produce unexpected outcomes. For example, new homebrewers are met with conflicting opinions about things like using a secondary and hot side aeration, which can lead to confusion that might be unappealing to some. Regardless, I trust as long as we maintain a culture of inclusiveness over divisiveness and a focus on the community, homebrewing will remain a rad hobby that can overcome any temporary setbacks.

| MATT |

I’m not sure how much of my perception is colored by the steps I have taken deeper into homebrewing over the last 3-4 years including writing about it. From my perspective, homebrewing seems to have grown from a fringe hobby for older guys with spare garage space to something more hip being practiced by a wider group of people with batches and methods of all sizes. Most interestingly, a lot of it seems to have happened very recently. I think that is where the growth of the hobby has come from and where it will continue to come from as long as we don’t turn on ourselves.

I’ve always thought there’s something satisfying about making something myself, especially when it can be held up as comparable to professional work. As someone who has done a lot of “just passable” home repair and improvement projects over the same amount of time that I’ve been seriously homebrewing, I think that goes double for me. While my paver patio is loose and not exactly square (it’s a project I’ll likely never try again), I’m at a point where I’m reasonably confident that when I do a recipe well, I’m going to get what I’m shooting for no matter how “out there” it is. I think this aspects helps make the hobby appealing to a younger generation. With the broad scope of the definition of millennial, and that groups love of authentic, local artisan fare, homebrewers walked into a perfect storm. Combine that with a rise in technology allowing newbie brewers to learn and compare things from far and wide via YouTube, podcasts, Reddit and more and it is an impressive storm indeed.

I believe the growth is also coming from brewers opening their clubs and personal outreach to a broader demographic of people, which has, for example, encouraged women to shake off the idea that beer (or making it) is a “guy thing.” While we might be a majority of 40+ year old white dudes, the increase in women and non-white brewers has been a shot in the arm for the hobby as a whole. This is not to get off on some kind of social justice rant, rather to note that appealing to a wider group of people will always spur growth that leads to new ideas and increases in quality. This is something I’ve certainly seen over the last three years, even down here in Florida. Now we just have to make sure homebrew doesn’t become the equivalent of the annoying beer snob at the bar, making sure all tastes and levels of experience feel welcome in the Church of Zymurgy.

Cheers to you all! May it only get better.

| RAY |

Knowing what state something is in requires a frame of reference, a perspective from which to ascertain the state of affairs, and I simply don’t have the benefit of that perspective. My brewing history is rather short – around 5 years – but intense; brewing has monopolized much of my free time and a sizable portion of my garage.

In this relatively brief time, I have begun to see my small corner of the world change in regards to homebrewing. What was met initially with skepticism, fear, and confusion has become understood. People who wondered early on how my (and others’) homebrew might be compared to “real beer” have come to favor most of what I serve them compared to typical craft offerings. I’ve seen drinkers who used to seek the most bitter, dry, and biting IPAs really turn the corner and come to prefer the robust aromas from an ultra fresh IPA with bright hop character and a smooth, subtle bitterness. I am sure every prolific homebrewer has seen the transition from friends and family, once nervous and cynical, turning to appreciation and preference.

Looking within the hobby, I see brewers of all different motivations and backgrounds: the engineer-types who obsess over process and equipment, the esoteric flavor folks always trying to find some new fruit/spice/vegetable/herb/smoke combination that will make their base beer all the more interesting,  the pro-hopefuls constantly trying to find an innovative edge to set their beer apart, the budget drinkers who want to make their favorite styles for a fraction of what comparable commercial beer sells for, and the presenters whose labels, logos, and waxed caps are as much a part of the hobby as the liquid inside. There are many other motivating factors, and with so many different reasons for brewing, it’s no surprise I don’t see the homebrew hobby as one monolith, but rather many folks with many different reasons they love turning malt, hops, yeast, and water into something more.

Yet, we’re all connected by the love of good beer, and the willingness to put in the effort to make it ourselves, so when I visit a club meeting, or even just end up talking with other brewers for one reason or another, I see the same thing I see in any other passionate group of hobbyists– stoke. Fishermen will talk for hours about this river, that lake, or the one that got away. Surfers will yap on and on about the perfect weather, wind, wave, lament the sting ray stings, and plan for that epic surf getaway where it will all be perfect. Backpackers spin yarns over the trips never taken, the trips that grow in our memories, that afternoon storm that threatened a brief electrical end to their lives. And brewers, well, we talk about beer. The one we’re drinking now, maybe the one that inspired it, but more often than not, we talk about the beer we wish it would have been. Thankfully, there’s always a next batch…

| MALCOLM |

Everything is awesome. Beer in general, and homebrewing in particular, seem to be all the rage. We have super mega breweries buying up the smaller guys because they cannot beat ’em so they buy ’em. And now, just about everywhere I go I meet homebrewers, most of them new and some just brew-curious. The former VP of the company I work for just won a medal at NHC. Pretty cool. But, to be honest, I am starting to feel like the garage band I discovered got too popular. A decade ago, if someone discovered you were a homebrewer, they considered you a purveyor of the arcane; now, you are just like so-and-so’s brother-in-law. How is it I meet so many homebrewers and yet the 2013 AHA survey implies there are only 1.2 million of us. I say “only” because there are 324 million eligible folk in the US, meaning homebrewers comprise a relatively small percentage. Yet, somehow if you perform an online search for “popular hobbies,” which inevitably and annoyingly get separated by gender, homebrewing pops up with regularity for males, just behind grilling– how manly. The top result “for women” had cooking, wine tasting, and the predictable list of “girly hobbies” including scrapbooking, knitting, reading, and pole dancing. No homebrewing, not even winemaking. They may as well have listed childbearing . Lame.

Part of me wonders if there is a homebrewing “bubble” and the hobby is at or reaching it’s apex. But then I read the numbers. I get the sense of a bubble only because such is often the trend when there is a quick rise in popularity. Is craft beer following the homebrewing phenomena, or is the rise in homebrewing popularity being fed by the popularity of craft beer? My inclination is to say craft beer is feeding homebrew, coupled with the availability of information online. Social media, online forums, and YouTube have brought beginners up close and personal with experts in various fields, authors, podcasters, very accomplished amateur and professional brewers, as well as other beginners willing to share their experiences.

Awesome, right? Well, no. While I prefer to be optimistic, even though I know it doesn’t work, I do have one concern. Because homebrewing and craft beer are seemingly intertwined, I wonder if the powerful mega brewers (with their lobbyists and politicians) will start futzing with our hobby. You see, they hate losing money, and they love legislation that makes it hard for small folk to operate. The merging of AB Inbev/SABMiller was just approved by the US Justice Department and it’s antitrust protection laws. So what? It was only very recently people in all 50 states had the legal ability to homebrew, and still a few are wrestling with some bizarre add-ons like how, where, with whom, and how to transport wares. NHC 2015 in San Diego, anyone? Also, look at the hula hoops of labeling, naming, approval/disapproval of self distribution and selling of a brewery’s own products on site, and the various types of licensing. Such laws and legal stipulation are nary a bother for large corporations but potentially huge hurdles for small brewers. I do not think for one second the the homebrewing hobby will be without challenges as the big breweries get bigger. Where do you come in? Join clubs, become an AHA and BA member, speak up to your local representatives, and become active in your local brewing scene. I will if you will.

Those are are views on the current state of homebrewing, what do you think? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below!

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