Draught beer on the rise again

When it comes to on-premise beer, the U.S. has always sported strange customs. Go to any bar and, more likely than not, you will be served a beer in a bottle rather than a draught beer. Thankfully, things are changing. And it’s because of craft beer.

Currently not quite one in ten beers sold in the U.S. is draught, but should rise to 10 percent of U.S. beer volume next year, Lester Jones, the Chief Economist of the Beer Institute, a trade association, told delegates at the Beer Insights Seminar in November 2011 in New York.

Draught volume grew 1.1 percent between 2009 and 2010 in a market which went down 1.3 percent.

While imported draught beer volume has been on the decline for the past few years, domestic draught is growing again, “thanks to the craft industry,” Mr Jones said.

The best markets for draught beer are the Northwest, the Northeast, as well as Florida and Nevada (think Las Vegas) where draught is over 10 percent.

The growth in draught beer sales has to be attributed to the U.S. craft brewers. Although their total market share is only 5 percent (2010), many craft brewers sell about 30 percent to 40 percent of their beer in kegs, reported Paul Gatza, a Director of the Brewers Association, which represents U.S. craft brewers.

More than for their larger domestic rivals, it’s “critical” for smaller brewers to do well on draught considering that 87 percent of on-premise sales for craft brewers come from draught. That’s compared to 61 percent of sales for all beer sold on-premise.