Every Day is IPA Day

A look at the state of beer in 2024 and a visit to a Garden in Croatia

The Discovery of Fire Triple IPA from The Test Brewery at their Williamsburg taproom last month

Happy National IPA Day! It took four years of writing this newsletter before finally acknowledging this day, despite it always falling on the first Thursday of August. I guess my utter disdain for the IPA Day effort hasn’t changed after 13 years. In 2011, I wrote with disgust that this effort, which started on social media, was cynical and that “every day is IPA Day.” In 2013, I was so fed up with how ubiquitous IPA had become that I simply gave up on the style, refusing to consume an IPA for the first 15 days of August. In 2014, I pointed out that IPA had become the top-selling craft beer style in the country, and that it didn’t need celebrating. And all of this was before the advent of New England IPAs as a beer style.

Regardless, it was ten years ago today that I recommended five local IPAs from the New York area, and it’s surprising how many of them are still around: Other Half Green Diamonds, Singlecut 18-Watt IPA, and Greenport Harbor Otherside IPA make regular appearances on tap and in stores around town. Captain Lawrence’s Pacific Dawn is fairly comparable to the now-departed Captain’s Reserve Imperial IPA in those days, and Eastern Standard from Peekskill Brewery only faded from memory last November when the brewery closed.

Anyway, it’s not that I don’t like the style. I love IPAs, but I also love variety, and often eschew IPAs in favor of more hard-to-find styles of beer. In spite of all my best efforts to stop trying to make IPA Day happen, here are five New York City IPAs that I’ve really been enjoying these days:

Finback IPA: Their original flagship IPA still holds true to its roots: crisp, clean, full of C-hops (Chinook, Columbus, Cascade). Fresh on tap at the brewery, it transports me back to my more youthful days of chasing high-IBU beers that would melt your palate off. It’s well worth revisiting if you haven’t had it in a while.

Kills Boro Ferry Beer: it’s harder to find Session IPAs these days, but this aptly-named beer from Staten Island really hits the spot when you want to booze responsibly. Not watered down, full of pineapple and citrus flavor from the Motueka hops. It’s downright refreshing.

Other Half Green Flowers: a lot has changed at Other Half over the past decade, but they’re still true to their roots with this West Coast IPA with a mix of old school and new school hops: Citra, Amarillo, Idaho 7 and Strata. Probably a bit more restrained than the bitter bombs that defined IPAs ten years ago, but still hits the spot.

TALEA Sun Up: TALEA’s hazy IPA is easy to find at bars across the city, and it’s easy to tell why: the Mosaic and Idaho 7-hopped brew is bursting with citrus, tropical, and berry notes. If you haven’t had a Sun Up in a while, it’s time for a revisit.

Wild East Monopoly: Alora: the folks at Wild East probably never want to be known for their IPAs, but don’t sleep on their IPAs. This version from their single-hop hazy IPA series features a proprietary hop from Hopsteiner with some really nice orange and pineapple notes.

Breaking Down the Brewers Association’s Midyear Beer Market Figures

Late last month, the Brewers Association released the results of their annual midyear survey of small, independent brewers across the U.S. Among the major findings:

• The number of active craft breweries increased from 9,339 in June 2023 to 9,358 as of June 2024

• 54% of surveyed breweries reporting growth in the first half of 2024 compared to a year ago

• There was a continued small decline by volume in the market, estimated to be down 2% compared to 2023

• Independent craft packaged sales were down 2% year-over-year (YoY) in Nielsen NIQ-tracked distribution channels

• On-premise sales show better performance than off-premise, being flat to down slightly

These numbers aren’t any more grim than anything else we’ve seen over the past couple of years, and it seems there’s just a continued chipping away at the craft beer market. Fewer people are drinking overall, so fewer people are drinking beer, and in turn, fewer people are drinking craft beer. As has been noted in past data from the BA, on-premise sales tend to do better than beer distributed off-premise. It’s what makes the [admittedly small] growth in the number of new breweries over the past 12 months unsurprising. Bearing in mind that branch locations where on-premise brewing occurs are included in the BA’s number, existing breweries are looking to expand their footprint to reduce overhead and sell more beer direct to consumers. Breweries that expanded rapidly and shifted to a model that includes distribution are definitely more at risk these days than ones that stay small and focus their sales on-site, given that much of craft beer’s volume reductions are coming from off-premise sales channels.

Still, despite the BA painting the picture that more breweries opened than closed in the past twelve months, the group’s year-end numbers earlier this year suggest that closings have accelerated since the end of 2023. Based on a comparison of the numbers they’ve published, the country has seen a net increase of exactly one brewery since January — and there’s always the caveat that there’s a delay in the reporting of closings. It’s quite likely this year will be the first since 2004 that more breweries close than open in the U.S.

The BA’s chief economist Bart Watson noted that the variations between regions and markets were fairly drastic. In my experience traveling around the country this year, that could have a lot to do with local economies grappling with the increased cost of brewing and doing business. Even compared to New York, I had sticker shock at some brewery taprooms in Southern California, where on-site full pours were averaging nine to ten dollars. In areas where the overall cost of living has soared, “affordable luxuries” like beer may be on the chopping block, especially as the cost of making that beer has increased, too. Indeed, Arryved point-of-sale data from the first half of this year suggests average bar tabs are down slightly compared to this year, as beer drinkers cut back their spending.

The overall state of the industry isn’t necessarily reflective of the appearance from the ground in any market. Beer industry pressures will rear their head in different ways in different places. New York City has seen two brewery closures and one brewery opening so far in 2024, but there are still breweries in planning that expect to open this year. Some breweries here are expanding by adding locations, some are expanding their distribution footprints, and others are contracting. In the end, it’s not a picture of doom and gloom (despite the weekly feature in this newsletter), but existing brewers will continue to face new challenges and new brewers getting into the game need to tread carefully; merely opening a brewery was never a blueprint for success, but that’s especially true today.

Brewery Tracker

Total brewery count: 3,474
Total breweries visited in 2024: 190
Total breweries visited in Croatia: 1

Brewery Visit of the Week

Brewery #3447, The Garden Brewery, Zagreb, Croatia (Visited 7-Jul-2024)

I was not enjoying my visit to Zagreb. After visiting Slovenia for the previous four days, Zagreb felt a bit grimy, the weather was oppressively hot, its architecture felt scatter-shot, its growing pains showed in the form of construction blocking a sidewalk on every block, its bars were smoke-filled, and it seemed to sequester tourists in a bunch of mediocre restaurants and bars that had me wondering where the hell the locals hang out. Ever have a day on a trip where you’re just not having it? That was me the day before I visited The Garden. But I woke up that next morning, looked in the mirror, and said to myself, “you’re going to go out and find a good time today, even if it kills you. You’re on vacation. Enjoy it!”

It helped that I knew I’d enjoy the beer at The Garden. I’ve had their beer at multiple beer festivals, and they’ve collaborated with multiple breweries in New York, including Finback, Thin Man, and KCBC, whose collaboration Yuzu and Coffee Sour I knew would be on tap that day. So I trekked via tram on a very hot Sunday to The Garden’s sprawling taproom, production facility, and garden and immediately ordered that oddly delicious sour, with a subtle underlying coffee bitterness rounded out by some lovely yuzu sweetness and tang. I followed up with Rosa, their unfiltered Keller Helles, and walked around the outdoor space, with lots of shade and plenty of places to sit and socialize. There’s even a children’s play area. And back inside, the airy, glass-ceilinged taproom includes a leafy sunken seating area and two food vendors slinging great sandwiches and burgers. The whole brewery wouldn’t feel out of place in a suburban industrial park in the U.S.

I ended up spending most of the afternoon at The Garden, and my mood was greatly improved when I left. Not to mention I got some recommendations on where the locals go to drink good beer in town, and later that day, I felt like I was seeing Zagreb again for the first time. It’s not so bad. Especially if you’ve got a couple great IPAs in you.

The Doom and Gloom Tracker

At least 2 breweries I’ve visited closed or announced their closure this week:

• Brewery #1220, Tradesman Brewing, Charleston, South Carolina (Visited 11-Aug-2018)

• Brewery #2536, Brewlab Charleston, Charleston, South Carolina (Visited 15-Jan-2022)

The Weekly Reader

• Brooklyn and Carlsberg have teamed up on a 100% fonio beer [Jessica Mason, The Drinks Business]

• There’s a chance someone’s gonna get sick off a draft NA beer [Evan Rail, VinePair]

• Meet the Executive Director of the National Black Brewers Association [Jamie Bogner, Beer & Brewing]

• To each their own, I guess [Jessica Wrubel, Parade]

One Last Thing

You may know from past newsletters that I grew up in Rhode Island. I’m headed back to my old stomping grounds so I can once again say I’ve been to every brewery in the Ocean State. Indeed, three new breweries have opened there in the last six months: Phantom Farms Brewing in Cumberland, Tower Hill Brewing Co. in Wakefield, and a new, expanded location in Providence for Buttonwoods Brewery. Quite excited to see what’s brewing back home this weekend!

Cheers,
Chris