The comment above came in a webinar titled “2025 Beer Industry Q4 Update” (Jan. 22, 2026). In that webinar, Lester shared a perspective that the industry is overly concerned with the demand side of beer’s recent declines, and should instead focus on oversupply.

I’m compelled to begin this response to that sentiment by saying I respect the hell out of Lester. He has a uniquely creative way of distilling complex industry dynamics into pithy perspectives. But, that doesn’t mean I never disagree with him, and that’s where we find ourselves today.

It’s not that he’s entirely wrong, only that the singular focus (notably pushing the focus away from wholesalers) is serving to “pass the buck” rather than to address industry issues head on.

Throwing Craft Under the Bus

Before we get to the heart of the issue, let’s consider craft’s place in the framing of this problem.

Lester said, “This [over-investment in capacity] was fueled by cheap money. This is fueled by local economic development offices giving people loans to set up in urban areas to make more craft beer.”

Let’s put aside that I’ve got a short list of a thousand breweries who would’ve loved to have money thrown at them by economic development offices. But really? The issue was in “more craft beer?”

Granted, between 2021 and 2024 craft beer volume dropped 6.5%, representing a far from insignificant 1.6 million-barrel decline in annual production. The demand for craft certainly has not matched what the industry is able to supply.

And yet! Over the same period, non-craft macro beer volume sunk 9.4%, or 15.4 million barrels. For those keeping track at home, that’s nearly 10 times the volume craft lost and is the equivalent of two-thirds of the entire craft beer industry volume dropped in four years. Oversupply is not just a craft problem.

Turns Out, Consumers Matter

It feels obvious to the point of insulting to highlight that the fortunes of the beer industry are tied to the behaviors of the people purchasing the product (or not).

One need look no further than per capita beer consumption to understand the impact. Between 2010 and 2024, per capita consumption dropped over 20% from 29.0 gallons per legal drinking age adult to 23.1 gallons/adult annually. Over the same period, U.S. adult population grew 14% and beer volume dropped 9%. Consumers are clearly drinking differently.

We also have data that shows reduced frequency of beer consumption among a growing cohort of beer consumers. On a related note, there’s evidence that beer consumers are spreading their beverage alcohol dollars more broadly across categories in an era of extreme beverage alcohol product expansion. Oh, and American consumers are feeling angsty about the economy, causing discretionary spending as a whole to take a hit, even if those same consumers are still shelling out for bread and gas and utilities.

Then there’s shifting demographics of the adult population, the evolving sentiment about health impacts of alcohol, large swaths of the consumer population spending less time socializing in a social media-dominated and politically-charged environment, explosion of online sports betting that pulls from the same discretionary pot as alcohol, and the list goes on. These factors matter.

Moving Forward

You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone in the beer business who would argue that there is not too much supply for the current demand in the market. Many brewers only need to look as far as the empty tanks in their own brewhouses to see real challenges in the manufacturing business model.

I also think to identify oversupply as the primary issue facing beer is to gloss over the complexity of a highly-regulated industry by scapegoating one of the three tiers. This incomplete narrative may help members of the other two tiers sleep better at night, but that doesn’t drive the industry forward.

Rather than passing the buck for today’s challenges to manufacturers, it’s important (on an existential level) that all three tiers work together to right-size supply, optimize beer’s messaging, streamline the entire supply chain from brewery inputs to beer buyer, and demonstrate the value of the product to today’s consumers in a way that lands with them.

We all have stake and responsibility in making this industry thrive.