Has craft beer hit its peak?

That’s the “peak question.” If you google “craft beer peak” you can find headlines going back as far as a couple years ago and as recently as a couple days ago. It’s a question that can only emerge in a vibrant beer market where it seems like we can find new brands on the shelves on a daily basis.

And it’s a question breweries should listen to, I think. Where does this question come from, really? Sure, if Forbes asks it it’s because investors want to know if they should get behind that fun new brewery project they’ve been hearing about. But it’s also a question coming from consumers who are starting to feel saturated.

More than saturated, in fact. Overwhelmed.

There are just so many choices, to the point that it can sometimes be a task just to pick out something to drink with dinner. You first have to scan the shelves just to understand what you’re looking at. Then you have to start narrowing down what your beer priorities are: something new? something dark? something hoppy? something familiar?

Only then can you start to choose among the dozen remaining options. You might read the carton. You might look it up in an app. If you have your kids in tow, you’ll probably find yourself making a somewhat arbitrary choice based on the best packaging.

Not How It’s Supposed to Be

To the brewers out there: I know this is not what you want. You want it to be like it was just a few years ago when going to the bottle shop was like going to a candy store. You want your customers to still feel that thrill of discovery, that excitement about trying something new.

But it’s happening to me, too. I go to even a Trader Joe’s or a Jewel and I feel like I don’t know where to start. I go to a Binny’s and the beer I wanted a month ago probably isn’t there anymore. But I only have so much time to shop for beer. I only have so much money to spend on it. I’m only willing to consume so many beer calories.

As I wrote in response to the McSweeney’s piece, beer drinkers are partly responsible for this. We chased variety and novelty and the breweries responded. Now we’re in a situation in the beer aisle similar to the content conversation online, what journalist David Shenk had already begun to call data smog back in 1997.

So what does this mean? Have we turned something fun and beautiful into another monster of the digital age?

This is not how it’s supposed to be. At all. And as beer drinkers, in particular, begin to tire of feeling overwhelmed, we’re going to see some changes in buying and consuming behaviors. Maybe we really will see a market peak.

More likely, though, I think we’ll see breweries themselves taking steps to prevent consumer overload. The emergence of niche brewing is a start in this direction. The Rare Barrel, for instance, only does sours. That makes it a little easier.

The biggest traditionally craft breweries have started to see a flat-lining of their growth, partly because smaller breweries are seeing so much growth. It’s not clear how much beer the market can handle, though it seems like it can handle a lot.

The breweries that survive with their identities in tact, though, will be those who can listen well and plan for what will happen when the recent fad passes.

Image credit: Rab Ritchie/GoodFreePhotos.com