My Report Card From 2008

Last year at this time, I made my usual five predictions for the 2008 beer year. Let’s see how I did.

 
The hops and malt shortages will continue to plague the industry throughout 2008 and may even grow worse.

My Score: A
This one wasn’t too much of a stretch, of course, though things did begin to calm down somewhat with the 2008 harvest.

 
Beer prices will go up, that’s a fact not a prediction. The real question is whether or not beer consumers will be willing to pay more and, if so, how much more?

My Score: A
Initial sales figures do seem to bear out that consumers are willing to pay a little bit more for craft beer. The growth figures by dollars remained in double digits, though with higher prices, it would have more surprising if they hadn’t. Volume growth did slow a little bit to 6.5% but was still better than the mainstream macro brands.

 
Distributor consolidation will increase and will continue to make things difficult for small brewers trying to bring their beer to market or increase their distribution to new areas.

My Score: A+
This was pretty much the number one topic at the NBWA Convention with Miller and Coors in arbitration and major import companies trying to figure out where they’d land. With InBev looking to make deep cuts to pay for acquiring Anheuser-Busch, there will likely be more distributors for sale and other shake-ups still to come in 2009.

 
Mergers among big multi-national beer companies will continue and at least one or two big such announcements will be made in 2008.

My Score: A+
I’d say this hunch came through with flying colors.

 
Neo-Prohibitionists will continue to step up attacks on alcohol generally and to specifically and inexplicably target beer.

My Score: A
This one was probably a little too predictable, but I was still surprised by how aggressive these chuckleheads became in 2008, attacking Santa Claus, alcopops and trying to get beer saddled with new and higher excise taxes.

Overall Score: A
I did better this year than last, though in retrospect I think I didn’t exactly go out on a limb with any of my prediction, taking a pretty safe route. At least it feels that way in retrospect. I think I’ll have to try harder this year to make less predictable predictions. See you next year!