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Craft brews go wild: Mint, melon, Asian flavors now trending

Move over wine lovers, craft beers are now in vogue in fast casual and QSR restaurants.

August 10, 2015 by Darrel Suderman — President CEO, Food Technical Consulting

Move over wine lovers, craft beers are now in vogue in fast casual and QSR restaurants — and why shouldn’t they be? According to a January 29, article in the Wall Street Journal (Erin Geiger Smith), the craft brewing industry began expanding around 2005, but has exploded in growth since 2010. The growth has been fueled by innovation in blended flavors and integration with nontraditional ingredients.

The history of craft brewing

According to the Brewers Association, The history of craft brewing saw the America’s brewing landscape start to change in the late-1970s. The traditions and styles brought over by immigrants from all over the world were disappearing. Only light lager appeared on shelves and in bars, and imported beer was not a significant player in the marketplace. Highly effective marketing campaigns had changed America’s beer preference to light-adjunct lager. Low calorie light lager beers soon began driving and shaping the growth and nature of the American beer industry, even to present day. By the end of the decade, the beer industry had consolidated to only 44 brewing companies. Industry experts predicted that soon there would only be five brewing companies in the United States.

The Brewers Association states that as the American brewing landscape was shrinking in taste and size, a grassroots homebrewing culture emerged. The homebrewing hobby began to thrive because the only way a person in the United States could experience the beer traditions and styles of other countries was to make the beer themselves. These homebrewing roots gave birth to what we now call the “craft brewing” industry.

Until today, craft brewers have succeeded in establishing high levels of quality, consistency and innovation, expanding the minds of the beer consumers and creating the most diverse brewing culture in the world. While craft brewers only had four percent of the U.S. beer sales in 2008, there is a tremendous upside for beer drinkers and craft brewers. The number of craft brewers has gone from eight in 1980, to 537 in 1994, to over 2,800 in 2013. The number of breweries in planning is skyrocketing. As of June 1, 2013, there are more than 1,500 breweries in development in the U.S.

Flavor innovation: Out with the old, In with the new

The craft brewing industry is now taking their craft to a whole new level with the focus on new flavor innovation. New flavor ingredients include Vidalia onions, guava, chocolate and coconut. The Ashville, N.C. Burial Beer Company recently launched  a weekly offering of one-off beer tastings and included flavor infusions that included an Asia Grocery brew that included flavors from lemon grass, lime leaves, ginger and Thai basil. Other brewers have developed brews with mint, melon, and cilantro — to steal a few flavor ideas from upscale martini menus.

Business drivers

For fast casual and QSR chains, craft brews provide a great revenue driver, great promotional tools, a millennial customer driver, and extended conversation among customers as they try one flavor after another. The bottom line is this, if you’re not serving flavored craft beers in your restaurant, then your falling behind in revenues, customer counts, and repeat customer visits. If your favorite fast casual Hooters and Buffalo Wild Wings are not serving these new flavored craft beers, just ask for them because Ii am sure they will have them before you can count to 10!