Craft beer customers: the best or the worst?

This week we've got short interview clips with two NYC bar owners that describe two different aspects of the craft beer customer pool.

Gerard Leary, owner of Sweet Avenue in Sunnyside, Queens talked about the majority of them. His thesis: craft beer, in general, brings a really nice crowd.

• Most of them come into his place and are just baseline grateful to be there.
• "You're not getting orders for vodka soda, vodka soda, vodka soda, followed by a key bump in the bathroom and then come back out. You're not dealing with that crowd."
• These people are just pleasant and nice to be around. And they care about your business succeeding because they want to be able to come back.

Zach Mack, owner of Alphabet City Beer Co. (among other places) talked about a much more challenging (and way smaller) subset of craft beer customers: "whale hunters."

For the unfamiliar, "whale hunters" are people who go after the big name, hard to find beers (these are the "whales" being hunted) and nothing else. We all know these folks—they're the ones constantly checking beers in on Untappd, etc. Here's why they're a challenge:

• They're way more likely to complain if something isn't perfect. For Zach this manifests when folks complain about fancy hazy IPA cans being dented.
• Whale hunters couldn't care less about how his business is doing—they just pop in when they know he has something special and then don't come back. They never become regulars.
• Zach has started thinking a bit more about this, and has considered shifting away from the super exclusive stuff and instead just focusing on having awesome beer that's usually available. It's not as flashy, but there's a good chance it could be a better business model, since someone who falls in love with that awesome and always available beer will know they can always come to him to get it. Just like that, he'd have himself a new regular. If someone only came to him for the annual Bourbon County release, he wouldn't see them til a year later.

Check out the interview clips for more from Gerard and Zach about craft beer customers:

We figured it was time for a check in on the "most popular" lists. This week we've got craft beers, but over the next 3 weeks we'll report on a few other lists (most popular domestics, most popular seltzers, and overall most popular beers).

But for now, here are the 10 most popular craft beers so far this year, with most popular at the top:

	The Alchemist Heady Topper Double IPA · 8.0% · Stowe, VT
	Löwenbräu Original Helles Lager · 5.2% · München, Germany
	Indeed strawberry fields Sour Ale · 5.4% · Minneapolis, MN
	Forge Irish Stout Dry Stout · 4.3% · Dekalb, IL
	Russian River Pliny The Elder Double IPA · 8.0% · Santa Rosa, CA
	Yuengling Traditional Lager Pale Lager · 4.5% · Pottsville, PA
	Lost Coast Tangerine Wheat Fruit Beer · 5.5% · Eureka, CA
	Maine Lunch IPA · 7.0% · Freeport, ME
	Russian River Pliny The Younger Triple IPA · 10.25% · Santa Rosa, CA
	Allagash White Witbier · 5.2% · Portland, ME

Note: popularity is determined based on pageviews to beer pages on BeerMenus.com.

Well it's looking like this just won't go away. Anheuser Busch unfortunately put 2 executives on leave after the machine-gun-heavy response to it's partnership with a transgender influencer. This follows a reported 17% drop in Bud Light sales. I definitely wasn't expecting them to be more inclusive after this, but bending in any way to the small-minded uproar is a small response in itself. Two thumbs way down.

In other news:

• In a story we've been tracking for awhile, New Jersey craft breweries are hopeful changes to state liquor laws will arrive in time for the summer season, but the bill remains stalled in the legislature. Among the things they hope will change: they can't serve food inside or outside (including food trucks) and a limit to the number of events they can host.
• Minnesota liquor stores aren't legally allowed to sell THC seltzers, but a lot of them are doing it anyway. There's that famous Minnesota nice on display.
• You can now bring your dog into Kansas microbreweries! Kind of shocking this wasn't the case before.

Next week we're going to feature part 1 of an interview with Beth Hussey, a Michigan-based restauranteur and bar and restaurant staff training expert.

Her expertise is deep—she's been training staff for decades and also recently launched a nifty staff training app called Shifty—so make sure you bring a pen and pencil to next week's edition!