Anyone who writes about beer, sells it or makes it eventually runs into the same question: why do some beers stay in memory while others fade away, even when what is in the glass feels broadly similar? One plausible answer is that recipe quality is only part of the equation. The story around the beer […]
There is a precise moment when you understand what you are looking for when you order a beer. It is not necessarily when you lift the glass toward the light or try to catch the aroma. It comes earlier: in the place you are in, the people beside you, the time of day, the season. […]
There is something paradoxical about the position Diageo, the international spirits group, finds itself in right now. Guinness, its best-known beer brand, delivered double-digit organic net sales growth in the group’s latest results. But spirits still sit at the core of the business, and when the wider picture softens, the response tends to be familiar: […]
There is a thread running through some recent conversations about American beer: hops. Not as a generic ingredient, but as a precise choice, a brewing approach, a way of shaping aroma. On one side is a beer that helped redefine the American IPA. On the other is the seasonal return of fresh hops, which each […]
Some shifts in beer make more sense once they stop looking like exceptions and start reading like clues. One is BridgePort’s new IPA, released in Portland, Oregon, in 1996: a local brewery, a very clear idea of what hops could do, and a beer that helped bring attention to the aromatic profile of American cultivars, […]
There is a moment when a beer can stops being just a container and starts telling a story. Not because its shape changes dramatically, but because it plugs into a shared code: a celebration, a team, a pop character, a sense of belonging. Three recent launches show how packaging can move from the functional plane […]
Looking at beer today, the market does not point in just one direction. In some mature markets, volumes remain under pressure. In the UK, meanwhile, sweeter and more fruit-led beers are finding space, especially among younger drinkers. On the production side, pilsner continues to be discussed as a style that puts brewing technique to the […]
There is a paradox that runs through beer: some of the most compelling producers are also among the most economically exposed. Not because they make poor decisions, but because they build value around history, method and a sense of place — three things the market does not always reward in proportion to their importance. Rodenbach, […]
There is a point where market figures and drinking habits seem to tell the same story, even if they do not line up perfectly. In Germany, the beer sector is going through a clear period of contraction: in 2025, the number of active breweries fell to 1,415, down from the 2019 peak. Beer volumes have […]
The German beer market is facing more than a passing slowdown: the latest figures point to a period of pressure that is beginning to reshape the sector. In the first half of 2026, total market volumes fell by 2.2% compared with the same period in 2025; the domestic market declined even more sharply, while June […]