Abstemious hermits or what?

Can it really be true that most Australians only know two styles of beers: lager and light lagers? This is what Lion’s market research suggests. Unless, of course, researchers on behalf of Australia’s major brewer Lion took the easy way out and only polled teetotallers upon leaving church.

Speaking at the 34th IBD Asia-Pacific convention (14 – 18 March 2016) in Sydney, Lion’s Managing Director James Brindley admitted to a packed-out auditorium that Australians on the whole seem to have little understanding of beer and brewing, only knowing of two beer styles.

I find this hard to believe since beer and the pub have long been a pillar of male socialising. Where else would Australian men meet their mates if not at a pub? Also most hotels (Australian for “pubs”), if not all, tend to offer many beers, including – in recent years – craft beers. How on earth the rise of craft breweries to over 200 could have gone unnoticed by at least half of the population – the male half that is – is beyond me.

There is no denying that the decline in overall alcohol consumption is primarily driven by the beer category. As said Mr Brindley, “fifty years ago beer made up three quarters of all alcohol consumed, but it now makes up under half at 41 percent. Over the same period wine’s share has increased significantly from 12 percent to 38 percent, while spirits and RTDs have increased from 13 percent to 19 percent. Cider remains small at 2 percent, but continues to grow.”

He argued that there are a few reasons for this. Most prominently, there seems to be little understanding of beer and brewing amongst consumers in Australia. Lion’s research showed that 88 percent of people don’t know what’s in it! In my opinion, if this is true, then Big Brewers’ marketers have done a really poor job in educating consumers or consumers don’t know how to read. The information as to what has gone into a beer can be found on beer labels to the extent that craft brewers these days actually list the type of hops they used. Which is why craft beer drinkers have been identified as “hip, young inner-city dwellers” aged below 50, who are “cashed up, clued up and cultured”. (Roy Morgan research)

This implies that craft brewers have learnt from the country’s winemakers who have excelled at romanticising winemaking as a craft, while Big Brewers were unable to shed their image as industrial manufacturers, whose agricultural origins and craftsmanship continues to be overlooked.

That’s why, according to Mr Brindley, 58 percent of Australians believe wine is made by people who are passionate about what they do, compared to 33 percent for beer. And while most Australians would be able to rattle off a number of wine varietals to you on request, on average people can name only two beer styles – lager and light.

By way of explaining beer’s decline, Mr Brindley offered the sociological view that there has been a shift in how Australians are socialising, particularly between the sexes. Short of blaming womenfolk, Mr Brindley explained that Australian men and women are socialising more together and in turn they are looking for alcoholic beverages that can be shared and enjoyed in mixed gender settings – something that beer has traditionally not catered for very well.

If beer enjoys such a low reputation with men that they would rather forgo beer when out to impress females than be regarded as a yokel, it’s high time that craft beer captures more of the Australian alcohol market. As said above, craft beer drinkers are viewed – and see themselves – as “cashed up, clued up and cultured”. What’s wrong with that?