Solving the "Craft Beer Week" Puzzle

Every year when Craft Brewers Guilds announce their Craft Beer Week, I open social media and feel like Bill Murray waking up to see that it’s once again February 2nd. The exact same threads play out which have been happening for about seven years now, word for word, from beer fans, retailers, and brewery employees. Why can’t Craft Beer Week be what it used to? And more importantly, retailers who helped build the craft beer scene 10+ years ago are left in the cold. How do we solve this? Well I’ve got a proposal…

Euphoria 💃 🕺

It’s widely agreed that Craft Beer’s peak euphoria undoubtedly took place somewhere in the window of 2013-2015. Chicago at this time was well-regarded as a “beer town”, but not for it’s extensive local scene (yet). Along with Philadelphia, it was referred to as the most “distributed to” city, in part because of its central location, but also it’s size and beer-drinking culture. Craft Beer Week would be all the excuse an out-of-market brewery selling their beer in Chicago needed to send the big guns to town, visit key accounts, and throw a fun event. You could count on seeing beer celebrities like Sam (Dogfish Head), Tomme (Lost Abbey), and others from “The First Name Club” bouncing around the city’s top beer bars all week long.

During this era a first and second wave of local breweries had begun to spring up, most following a more old school approach by making distribution the priority. Think Metropolitan, Pipeworks, Off Color, Spiteful, and many others who focused on bottle shops and bars before investing in or prioritizing their own retail space. As a result, these breweries too would use Craft Beer Week as the occasion to throw a banger of a tap takeover at a bar or team up with others under a common theme.

Local Domination 💥

The second half of the 2010s is when everything changed. Local competition spiked as a third and fourth wave of craft breweries opened. By then, most breweries opened as Taprooms or added one, allowing their model to become a blend between on-site hospitality and distribution. With what felt like a new Taproom opening each week, local began to dominate.

Brands like Stone, Victory, Six Point, Green Flash, and Deschutes played integral roles of discovery for the Chicago scene, but it’s nearly impossible to compete with local breweries who can provide that on-site experience and the accelerated brand building it provides. Out-of-state breweries were forced to retrench and adjust expectations, often reducing or eliminating their sales presence, or they pulled out completely.

The 2020s 😷

With COVID restrictions generally over, we’ve reached a new state of craft beer with consumption dipping and the economy shaky at best. Fewer draft handles are available as many bars have closed and others have rationalized their offerings. Shelf space has been eaten into by Hard Seltzers, Canned Cocktails, and NA offerings to support these COVID-era trends. As a result, state guilds which often consist of just one or two full-time employees, have had to elevate the importance of promoting its members, with education and lobbying historically taking priority. Enter the continued existence of Craft Beer Week.

So how do you celebrate Craft Beer Week when every day of the year is a fight for Craft Beer? I don’t have a much better idea than what the Illinois Guild is already doing, which is bringing its members together for a celebratory beer fest to close down a week long celebration of Illinois Beer. However, this still leaves a giant gap to fill. What about the beer bars and bottle shops who are rightfully upset because they’re no longer the focus of Craft Beer Week after playing such an integral role in building craft beer locally? They were the beneficiary when so much of the good beer was coming from out-of-state and thus, they served as the Taproom. Now, with a “tap takeover” essentially happening at hundreds of taprooms in the state every day, how do you shine a spot light on the anchor of our local scene? I’ve got an idea.

Retailer Appreciation Week, with a Hook 🪝

Rather than trying to cram two major objectives into a single week, I would create a completely different week at an opposite time of year to focus exclusively on celebrating retailers. While this is an occasion that should be happening 365 days per year, there’s ways to take it much further for an earmarked time of year. Participating breweries would create a market-exclusive beer that they do not sell in their Taproom on draft or to-go.

Brewery social media and guild PR efforts for this period would be directed exclusively toward all components of retailer appreciation instead of own premise, while pointing fans toward the locations serving the exclusive, curated beers. Interested retailers would dedicate as many of their draft lines or a display space for as many of these special offerings as they choose and consumers would hopefully respond well to the brewery and guild’s calls-to-action by directing their dollars more exclusively toward retailers. In a perfect world, these would be thoughtful new recipes, with input from or even collaboration with a retailer on their creation.

Who says no?