Authors: Marshall Schott & Andrew Bromley
Information is good. Understanding the who, what, when, where, and why of the people engaged in the same activity allows us to better understand certain things. Plus, it’s just interesting.
A few months back, we released our annual General Homebrewer Survey and sought responses over the following month, during which it was completed by 2,694 people from around the world. In addition to providing an interesting peek into what the modern homebrewer looks like, our hope is that this information can be used to highlight areas of potential focus so that homebrewing will continue to grow as a hobby.
As has been the case in previous versions, some minor changes were made to the most recent survey, based primarily on feedback from readers. We remain open to such feedback about this year’s survey and ask that you leave any suggestions in the comments sections below. Without further ado, the results of the 2019 General Homebrewer Survey.
Major thanks to Andrew Bromley for analyzing the survey data and putting it together in an easy-to-read format, it took quite a bit of time to make this pile of information presentable. Also, cheers to all of those who took the time to complete the survey and help us better understand more about the homebrewers of today.
If you have any thoughts about these survey results or suggestions for future surveys, please do not hesitate to share them in the comments section below!
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19 thoughts on “2019 General Homebrewer Survey Results”
I’m amazed how rich the majority of homebrewers are…..all my homebrew friends (inc. myself) are poor. From your survey, it seems most homebrewers are white, non-religious heterosexual clean shaven married rich homeowners….
On a more serious note, I noticed how the majority of the perceptions and outlook responses that were least agreed upon have been *arguably* debunked (here and elsewhere), whereas the ones that still are supported by commercial breweries are most agreed upon.
There also appears to be a 7 year itch for homebrewing as well as marriage…
Nice Job looks like interesting statistics.
I would love for statiscian to have a look at these. For example many of the numbers would be More interesting if compared to General population.
Btw as comment under me said that there is 7 year itch to home Brewing is not something you can define from the numbers.
Actually short beard was larger than clean shaven. Also this is not a survey of all homebrewers it is a survey of folks who follow this site. The AHA does a survey also that probably has a bigger sample size but even then there were a bunch of years I didn’t take it because I missed the announcement.
Boy does this hobby overwhelmingly slant white, hetro, affluent, male. WTF: not one single black person responded to this survey?!
I honestly don’t mean this as a shot, but rather as an honest suggestion: how about some pro-active visibility of under represented people on a popular and influential homebrewing website that is known to work collaboratively with other homebrewers? The problem wasn’t created by Brulosophy, by any means, but now as important players you can take a small active role in addressing it. No?
I Love what you guys are doing here. Keep up the good work.
I couldn’t agree more. We have plans to integrate Bru’s Views podcast episodes focused on underrepresented groups into the show. I was surprised that certain people, friends of mine, who are from underrepresented groups didn’t respond to the survey.
Still don’t understand the importance of facial hair. What’s next, underwear preference?
It’s not important, just kinda interesting.
Boxers, briefs, boxer-briefs, free ballin’ will be added to next survey. Thanks for the tip!
Underwear preference would be interesting, too! I’m afraid the know how many of identify as male but wear panties, though.
Most interesting
2% women, 0.2% trans, 0% black. Not one black dude?
What’s the ‘other’ sexual orientation?
61% furry faced
That’s a lot of atheist humanists who got married and had two kids. 🤯
Very interesting results! Aside from age, that survey totally describes me: straight, white American male that has an engineering background making over $100k/yr, married, has no kids, is a homeowner, but is not religious, maybe with some facial hair and has been homebrewing for 4-6 years.
It would be interesting to see some general health questions, one of my biggest concerns with consuming beer on a regular basis is the long term health effects. General questions about weight, BMI, and comorbidities such as heart disease and diabetes, could then be cross referenced with beers consumed, batches made and years homebrewing to see how much risk is associated with our hobby.
I would also be interested in some more health questions and lifestyle questions related to health: hours per week of exercise or physical activities, type of exercise, hours per day or week of tv or screen times as well as above comment. Information on how active or sedentary people are and their general health.
This is a fascinating survey. I’m a regular follower but I never heard of this survey. . . . Or maybe I recall one mention of it a while back. Whatever, I didn’t get to participate. If I didn’t know about it, I’m sure others’ didn’t, either. Boooo.
Ya, unless you are a rabid consumer of this site’s content, it was easy to miss this year. There were mentions in the podcast and newsletter but if you just occasionally browse the blog posts, it got buried and pushed off page one by the deluge of weekly posts. @Marshall – maybe try to improve visibility of the survey here and on other forum sites next time.
How many people participated in the survey this year and last? Or did I miss that?
It was within 100 people, just over 2700 last year and just under 2700 this year.
I was pretty surprised to see that 38% of respondents were extract brewing with steeping grains and only 26% were all-grain brewing! Then I realized that the default tab for that chart is “Initial” and the “Current” Tab showed that 95% of respondent’s current brewing method is all-grain. Considering that this is the only tab that indicates something other than 2018 or 2019, it might be more clear to display the charts side-by-side or some other way to highlight the huge shift. Just a suggestion, but I think it’s an interesting result that is somewhat hidden in the display summary!
Awesome work! I’m so happy that you’re taking the time to collect this data and make it so accessible for our community!
It would be interesting to use this survey data (and data from others) to try to better identify barriers to home brewing and identify strategies to increase diversity.
Space > (home ownership)
Resources > (income)
Acceptance of alcohol as part of lifestyle > (non-religious)
Family status > (stay at home hobby)
Education > (not surveyed, but extrapolating from the represented professions, most home brewers are STEM educated and have post- secondary educations)
Questions for the future might include:
Reasons for choosing home brewing as a hobby
Other hobbies pursued
Perceptions of personal social interactions