America’s craft brewers may be facing the sobering reality of inflation and looming tariffs, but a number of them are using creative problem-solving to navigate tight economic times.
Many of these artisans — traditionally known for their boldness and innovation — are finding ways to maintain quality and brand integrity without asking loyal customers to choke on the price.
“Pretty much everything that goes into making beer got more expensive over the past five years,” Bart Watson, president and CEO of the Colorado-based Brewers Association, told Fox News Digital.
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“In this competitive environment, it’s hard for brewers to pass all that on to the customer because they risk losing sales. So brewers are faced with this dual challenge.”
Beer makers have seen a sharp increase in costs since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“That’s when the supply chain really shifted,” David Stoneking, owner of Brotherwell Brewing in Waco, Texas, best known for its Belgian-style triple called Act of Faith, told Fox News Digital.
“The tariffs and other related things are still an unknown. Everyone is aware of them, everyone is worried about them, but nobody has actually paid an additional price quite yet.”
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Bill Butcher, owner of Port City Brewing Co. in Alexandria, Virginia, said he feels that, too.
“We have rising input costs for our ingredients, rising labor costs for our team and rents are going up. Everything is getting more expensive,” Butcher told Fox News Digital. “At the same time, people are being more careful with their money with all the uncertainty in the economy right now.”
Creative problem-solving helps craft breweries maintain price points without compromising the quality and variety their customers have come to expect.
Local sourcing and cost-effective collaborations
One way brewers are mitigating their costs is by sourcing local ingredients.
“Our bestselling beer, Optimal Wit, is brewed with 100% Virginia-grown wheat,” Butcher said. “We are happy to support our local Virginia agriculture. And as we’ve grown, we’ve become the largest purchaser of food-grade, Virginia-grown wheat in the state.”
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In addition to supporting local farmers, Butcher said it reduces transportation costs and also allows the company to monitor inventory and not over-order ingredients that might go unused.
Breweries in the same areas are also consolidating their orders for ingredients, Butcher said, as well as working together to ship their beer out to market when they have shared distributors.
“We try to collaborate with our local allies in the market and work together in ways that make sense for everybody,” Butcher said.
Diversifying into other markets
Some brewers are expanding into other markets, such as kombucha, seltzers and non-alcoholic options, in order to bolster sales.
“We make a non-alcoholic hoppy seltzer that we developed a couple of years ago as we saw the trend of ‘Dry January’ growing,” Butcher said. “We wanted to offer something to people if they wanted to come to the brewery but not necessarily drink beer.”
Brotherwell Brewing also has some non-alcoholic offerings and Stoneking said he’s always keeping an eye open for new options there, including food.
“We don’t have the resources right now to build out a kitchen,” Stoneking said. “But we do partner with local food trucks as often as we’re able.”
Affordable gathering place
Beer and communities have always been intertwined, Stoneking said.
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“Breweries and community beer gardens have developed as a space that was, throughout history, the place for people to gather,” Stoneking said.
“There’s a little bit of shade and a little bit of beer — OK, let’s hang out here as family or friends or community members. That has survived relatively unchanged for thousands of years.”
Compared with wine and spirits, even craft beer is on the low end of affordability.
“With beer, we can stay kind of accessible,” Stoneking said.
“Whether you’re paying $4 for a Bud Light or $6 for a craft beer, that $2 difference isn’t huge. That means we get to cast a wider net,” he said.
“People specifically choose craft beer at that $2 up-charge over major domestics precisely for the quality of it and for the exploration of it. They find value in it.”
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