Beer losing popularity, and it’s all your fault

Colin Joliat Staff Writer

A recent Gallop poll shows that the margin between beer drinkers and wine drinkers in the US is almost non-existent. The only time that wine has overtaken beer as the preferred beverage was in 2005. I blame that fluke entirely on the movie Sideways making people think that saying they drank wine made them cool. The current change is more likely due to an image problem for beer drinkers.

Alcohol Consumption Stats Beer losing popularity, and its all your fault
I would love to blame this on women only drinking wine, but real culprit here is men, specifically those between 18-34. In the span of one year, the percentage that say they prefer beer over wine or liquor dropped from 51% to 39%. What did beer ever do to you?  Wine gained a little steam within that demographic, but the real winner was liquor. This could be due to a number of options. The popularity of cocktail bars has grown significantly in the past year. The number of craft distilleries is also rapidly increasing, leading to more grass roots campaigns promoting local liquors. I think the real cause may simply be a negative image associated with beer drinkers, causing them to respond with something they deem more high-culture. Picture introducing yourself to woman in the checkout line. Would you rather be buying a bottle of scotch or a 12 pack of Bud Light?

Beer snob 136x214 Beer losing popularity, and its all your faultBeer drinkers tend to get a bad rap regardless of what their brew of choice is. It’s hard to put a finger on exactly what it is, but there is a certain stigma that comes with carrying around a case of Budweiser, and it’s not positive. Then you have the, “you must be an immature frat boy” attitude when someone sees a fridge full of Bud Light, or god forbid Keith Stone’s favorite, Keystone Light. The other end of the spectrum isn’t much brighter either. While the craft beer movement continues to grow (sales up 10% while total beer sales are down 1%), they still face the “beer snob” image problem. Just because I love to drink microbrews though, doesn’t mean that I am too good for Milwaukee’s Best. I simply prefer one over the other. Unfortunately, many people on both sides see it as an absolute and have a “you’re either with us or against us” mentality. No matter which you are drinking though, someone in the non-beer drinking world is going to think less of you.

Guys should be willing to stand up and identify themselves as beer drinkers. It’s delicious and nutritious (not really), and I am proud to say it’s my beverage of choice. I drink plenty of wine and liquor as well, but when it comes down to it, I’m with “Sideburns.” I’d rather have a beer.

Drinking Stats Beer losing popularity, and its all your fault
Note on survey methods: I don’t know exactly how much credence I’m willing to give this survey. They called a random sample of 1,016 people over 18-years old (good call considering the drinking age is 21), and only 666 responded that they drank alcohol. That percentage has remained fairly consistent over the years, but it still seems low to me. I have 1,014 friends on facebook right now, and of them probably only 3 of them don’t drink. They span all ages, races, and locations so it’s a pretty reasonable sample pool. If their is one knock it’s that nearly all of them are college educated.  If I had to guess, people just answer, “no,” to get off the phone with the annoying survey takers. More importantly, it seems like they should be using 10,000 or more responses when you are extrapolating the results to over 200 million people.

Link via CraftBeer

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