How to know what beer trends are coming before they arrive

We recently talked with Josh Hurst of Pies & Pints about how he knows what beer trends are coming before they arrive.

Here's how he figures it out:

Input 1: beer trends follow a predictable pattern. Learn it.

• For the most part (we know there are exceptions!) beer trends start on the west coast and move eastward.
• They'll pop up in Chicago, NY, Vermont, etc. after that.
• Then smaller, tip-of-the-spear breweries and bars here and there across the country (mostly in cities) will pick up on the trend as well.
• At that point the methodical march across the country begins. Eventually, years later, every brewery, bar, and restaurant will be participating in the trend.

Input 2: Now that you know the pattern, look where the pattern tells you to look based on who you are and where you're located. In other words, do some research.

Here's what to do:

• Think through: where are you located? Is your city ready for the next trend yet?
• Identify markets where the trend has already hit, then identify places that look like you in those markets.
• Now that you know where to look, start researching online and off. Visit the websites and social media of those places you identified. Talk to friends who live in or visit the place you're looking. Take a visit yourself. Talk with breweries, wineries, and importers about what you see and whether they think it's a trend coming your way.

Do that and you'll know what beer trends are coming for you next. You can even be the local spot that embraces the trend first.

👉 And though the goal of this interview was much more "teach a man to fish," we might as well give away some fish too. Here are the trends Josh sees coming next:

• Throwback styles. As Josh said, "there comes a point where you just want to sit down and drink a beer or two," which is exactly what you can't do with a lot of the crazy sours, high-abv stouts, and fruited up IPAs.
• Lagers and pilsners have already been coming back for a couple years, so Josh thinks things like west coast IPAs and pale ales are the next styles poised for a big come back.
• He also thinks there's some latent nostalgia for styles like Black IPAs. Styles like that evaporated over the last decade or so, but breweries have started releasing them again and Josh thinks that movement will be successful.

Check out the full interview for more from Josh:

That's right, the actor known across America as everyone's favorite Boston- then Seattle-based radio psychologist has a brewery called Faith American Brewing Company. (Pretty on-the-nose name given his politics.)

The brewery produces three beers:

	Faith American Ale Golden Ale · 4.8% · Margaretville, NY
	Faith American Calico Man IPA IPA · 6.9% · Margaretville, NY
	Faith American Blue Hazy NE/Hazy IPA · 6.0% · Margaretville, NY

And in the last seven days Faith American Ale—their flagship—received 1133% more pageviews to its page on BeerMenus.com than it did the previous seven days. That's a gigantic increase.

It's not exactly clear why it popped so hard, but maybe his guest bartending shift at a NY ski resort on Sunday had something to do with it.

• BrewDog, the UK's globetrotting craft brewery, said it'd be brewing in China by the end of March.
• Last week Bill Gates purchased a $900 million stake in Heineken, which amounts to 3.76% of the company as a whole. This despite his own admission that he isn't a big beer drinker.
• Just in time for National Margarita Day (yesterday, Feb. 22), CNN reported that agave plants are in grave danger from climate change related water shortages. No agave = no tequila or mezcal, which would interrupt its current trajectory to soon outpace vodka as the best selling liquor in the US.
• Spirits giant Campari saw a strong fourth quarter in 2022, and found a big source of strength in the US, where they see a lot of folks switching from beer to spirits.