Craft beer has become very popular in the last couple of years. Almost every liquor store has shelves stocked with different varieties of craft beer in the United States. Most of these craft beers are brewed locally by microbreweries.
Apart from the popular brands from large companies, we will see specialized formulations, wheat beers, lagers, stouts, pilsners, and ales from microbreweries in 2023. Craft beer lovers will continue having a wide variety of beers to choose from.
However, this is not going to be all smooth sailing for microbreweries. They will have to deal with a couple of challenges going into 2023.
Here are some of the biggest challenges for microbreweries going into 2023;
Production Challenges
We are having new microbreweries being set up every year. This leads to a diverse cross-section in the craft beer industry. Some of these microbreweries sell similar if not the same kinds of craft beers.
They also supply the same liquor stores, showrooms, and restaurants. Even though some microbreweries are trying to come up with different types of beers, it is getting difficult for them to remain unique.
Different microbreweries produce a variety of craft beers. For instance, more than 20,000 brands were produced by microbreweries in the U.S. It gets difficult for marketers to ensure that all these products are distributed. This leads to a drop in brewery sales, something that every microbrewery wants to avoid.
Point of Sale and Distribution Challenges
Microbreweries try as much as they can to distribute their products to different restaurants and retail stores to beat the stiff competition in the market. The entire brewing and distribution process is complicated and needs modern resources.
They have to track every raw material, beer production, processing, and distribution to ensure that they are not losing money in the process. Unfortunately, some of them operate under limited budgets, forcing them to manage their breweries with manual processes.
Fortunately, with technological advancements, they can say goodbye to manual data entry with Ollie. This is a software application that every microbrewery needs going into 2023. It is going to help them handle point of sale and distribution challenges.
Environmental Challenges
With the continued awareness to conserve the environment, microbreweries are forced to find ways through which they can ensure eco-friendly beer brewing. This has seen some companies use Tesla batteries to make brewing beer more eco-friendly.
The brewing industry is highly dependent on environmental conditions. A single gallon of beer needs about seven water gallons. The water that microbreweries use should have a certain combination of minerals.
The major challenge for microbreweries is to ensure that they are using the best quality of water despite the changing environmental conditions. Changes in the environment have also had an impact on barley and hops produced by farmers. Microbreweries, therefore, need to find ways of addressing this issue going into 2023.
Saturated Market
According to NBWA, there were about 49 breweries in 1983 in the U.S. This number grew to 13,380 by the end of 2021. This means that microbreweries are facing stiff competition.
They have to ensure that they have produced the best craft beers to convince customers to buy from them. Increased competition leads to a couple of other challenges. For instance, they have to ensure that they have the best employees.
They are all in the market looking for talented brewmasters. With such competition, they have to pay high salaries and provide the best working environments to retain their employees.
Remaining Relevant
Microbreweries have been doing a great job producing different types of craft beers. However, customers are not consistent. Most of them like sampling many types of beers. They do not remain loyal to a single brand for a long time.
This means that microbreweries have to find ways of remaining relevant among their customers. They have been forced to produce new and different types of beers every time. This is one of the ways for them to satisfy the thirst of their customers.
They are also producing limited edition craft beers that sell for some time. Others collaborate with their competitors to remain relevant. However, this is still not enough to address the relevance challenge. Customers’ preferences will keep changing, making it difficult for microbreweries to remain relevant.
The truth is that microbreweries will face many challenges going into 2023. However, this does not mean that the industry will not keep on growing. With the right tools and practices, we will witness a lot of success with microbreweries.
