To Beer or Not to Beer. As Strange Brew was a loose parody of Hamlet, I thought I’d peer crazily into the skull of poor Yorick, and try to divine the future. Let’s see if anything that happened last year can be used to predict what might happen in the beer industry in 2007. Here are five things I think will happen this year. Let’s see how I do a year from now. What are your predictions?
Craft beer growth will hit double digits for 2006 and also will continue to rise through 2007.
Price wars among the large domestic producers and the popular import brands will heat up again beginning in spring or early summer.
Mainstream media attention will increase and will actually begin to improve.
A-B’s Here’s to Beer PR campaign will either quietly disappear or if the website remains up will not have any new content added now that Bob Lachky is no longer in charge of the effort.
Gluten-Free beer made for the growing number of people with Celiac disease will surprise most predictions and become a bigger niche than expected.
for the sake of my two friends who have to eat a gluten-free diet — and who were in the process of being converted into beer geeks by yours truly — I hope you’re right about Prediction No. 5.