It is difficult to pick the right verb sometimes. Have UK beer sales truly collapsed? Do they merely reflect short term forces of nature? Or are this year's beer sales in the UK merely a blip in a bigger picture?
The beer market is in decline in the UK as Britons turn their back on what is, these days, often seen as an unhealthy and downmarket drink. The trend has not been helped by a host of factors this year, as the recent round of brewing figures has revealed. Not least, there is the dreadful summer weather that has dampened customers' thirst for both beer and cider, despite the latter's recent resurgence in popularity.I have done absolutely no comparative research for the North American market respecting the correlation of weather and beer sales other than what you see before you. If I wanted to drop $800, I could get this report on beer sales in Canada that apparently would show that a sweltering summer in 2005 helped beer sales volume grow 1% in 2005. We are told as we have recently read again, sales of macro brew in the US for some time have gone somewhat stagnate while craft beer sales rise but the state of the summer does not seem to be an element that goes into those statistical conclusions. And the Tremblays do not report on the externality of the weather as a critical factor in their econometrical study The U.S. Brewing Industry but if they did I suspect it would be on a longer time frame, perhaps indicating one benefit of global warming. In Canada, the question of beer seems also seems to be limited to shifts year over year.
All of which is a round-about way of wondering if beer here on the west side of the Atlantic is less weather sensitive or whether there is a heightened awareness of beer sales fluctuations over there to the east of the ocean that is more akin to how your team did in the league this year or how a person retirement watches the stock market. We Canadians and Americans may well share a trait with our Australian cousins, as this study from Oz in 1991 describes, that is the weather is not so much predictive of beer sales as it is merely a presence during beer sales.
Comments
Stonch - September 5, 2007 8:17 AM
Now wait a minute!
Read the article again. The opening paragraph says: " results out last week from the world's biggest brewers confirm that our love affair with lager has lost its fizz."
Note the reference to LAGER. Now read through the article - the beers and ciders mentioned are the macrobrew usual suspects.
Any mention of cask ale? Not one.
In fact, the damp and miserable summer has resulted in an upswing in cask ale sales, if what publicans are telling me is true. These figures are those from the big brewers, who are on the whole only producing law quality, cold, fizzy keg products. Frankly I'm pleased if people are drinking less of that stuff. It isn't good for them.
A smaller beer market in the UK isn't something to worry about, as long as the cask ale sector grows in real terms. Indications are that it will. Good news.
Stonch - September 5, 2007 8:21 AM
PS. Talking about weather-sensitivity - cask ale is definitely effected by weather. Sales usually plummet in summer. Cellars and lines warm up, and so does the beer.
I'm hardly surprised sales of ales in North America is less weather sensitive - as unfortunately most of it is served cold and fizzy all year around. That's not a good thing.
Solution? If you can't control the temperature in your cellar, serve a golden ale through a chiller. Hardly ideal, but if it allows pubs to sell real ale in summer, it's a good plan.