Ad Age magazine and Mindset Media surveyed 2,600 people to see how a choice of beer relates to personality, politics and purchases. Any kind of study like this takes the specific answer and tries to apply it to the general population, so the method is limited in accuracy, but can be seen as an indicator with a large enough sample size.

Here is what the report says about craft beer drinkers:

“CRAFT BEERS

These specialty made beers get lumped into one category both because there are fewer fans (and thus less statistically significant data) of them, but also because the personalities of one type fairly well describe another. This group is more likely to spend time thinking about beer rather than work. They are more open-minded than most people, seek out interesting and varied experiences and are intellectually curious. Craft-beer drinkers also skew as having a lower sense of responsibility—they don’t stress about missed deadlines and tend to be happy-go-lucky about life.

Craft-beer lovers are 153% more likely to always buy organic, 52% more likely to be fans of the show “The Office” and 36% more likely to be the ones to choose the movie they are going to see at the theater.”

Some of it seems pretty close to the craft beer drinkers I know. The “lower sense of responsibility” bit is off-the-mark to me. I see a high sense of responsibility among craft beer drinkers, but their priorities of what to take on as a responsibility are often different than those with less passion about life or their beer choices.

Another interesting descriptor was for abstainers:

“ABSTAINERS

It probably doesn’t take a psychographic profile to discover that those people who refuse to drink beer at all don’t like to loosen up very much. They are socially conservative and see many issues as black and white. Teetotalers honor tradition and authority and prefer a less-hectic social life.

People who turn down beer are 50% more likely to call themselves Republican, and are 30% more likely to never buy organic products.”

–Paul Gatza