Homebrewing Is Back … At Least During Stay-At-Home Orders

Four years ago I wrote an incendiary story here at Forbes that predicted the atrophy of what had been the extremely popular hobby of homebrewing. With the proliferation of craft breweries, I wrote, homebrewed beer had become a victim of its own success. Sadly, my intuition and reporting proved correct.

As I wrote in that story and again in 2019, homebrew stores have collapsed since then at rates not seen in decades, if ever, and interest in the lifestyle seemed to dry up as this generation’s homebrewers got older and busier with kids. Plus, isn’t it easier to pick up a growler at the new neighborhood brewery, anyway?

Jason Harris, founder of 28-year-old Keystone Homebrew Supply in the Montgomeryville suburb of Philadelphia, has lived through these industry ups and downs. To meet burgeoning demand, he opened a second location, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in 2004 and expanded his original in 2011. But in March 2019, a massive drop in business over the previous five years forced him to close the Bethlehem annex.

Now, with most forms of entertainment and obligation shut down because of strict COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders across the commonwealth, Harris’ business is getting an unexpected boost.

“We now have a continuous backlog of orders we work through as fast as we can,” he says. “I had to lay off part-time employees when we closed for a short time after the shelter-in-place order came through. Since we started offering (limited) delivery and curbside pick-up, I’ve brought two back. We are crazy busy and my staff is running around.”

While a 50% year-over-year social distancing drop in sales of kegs and accessories drags down Harris’ overall dollar figures, the sale of brewing equipment is up 90% and dollar sales of items like hop rhizomes, grains, yeast and bottles are a combined 35% higher. He’s got 70 items currently in queue, and he’s sold 16% more gift cards than this time last year.  

Stories from other area homebrew-shop owners sound somewhat similar.

“Business has been pretty good with online sales and curbside pickup,” says Scott Hyndman, co-owner of Keg and Barrel Homebrew Supplies in Berlin, New Jersey. “I have had a lot of OGs (original ‘gangsters’) coming out of the woodwork… brewing again because they have time and miss it.”

Even when the numbers have drifted along at their bleakest, American Homebrewers Association (AHA) Director Gary Glass has continued to optimistically predict a cyclical resurgence in homebrewing. That time has come, at least while shut-down orders last.

While an AHA retailer survey with 89 respondents shows that just about half report decreased sales since the start of nationwide shut-down measures in mid-March, one-third report higher sales than this time last year. (One in five are closing permanently or temporarily.) Plus, Glass suspects some sort of accounting error in the survey results, as he says just about every wholesaler he’s spoken to say most of their larger clients’ retail sales – particularly online — are spiking.

“I honestly think we’re going to see a renaissance. It takes their mind off what’s going on in the outside world, and ‘home’ is in the word ‘homebrewing,’” he says.

“I’m going to be brewing more in April as I certainly have fewer weekend social plans now. There is an excess of spare time and a need to replenish a rapidly depleting inventory,” says Matt Talbot, president of South Jersey’s Barley Legal Homebrewers club (of which I’m a member).

Talbot’s plans to brew more often are echoed by many on the group’s public Facebook page, with one bragging about getting his wife into the hobby for the first time and another eager to reteach himself a forgotten skill.

While most profess to support their small-business friends these days by intentionally shopping local – rather than from the dominant online-only monoliths – some homebrewers lament that they miss the personal interaction and advice they get from going inside to browse shelves instead of calling, emailing or texting in an order and pulling up to the front door with an open trunk to pick it up in the typical-for-the-times touchless transaction.

Vendors like Jimmy McMillan, who co-owns two Philly Homebrew Outlets in West Philly and South Jersey, says although he managed to pivot his business from 1% to a majority online ordering, he hopes his customers will remember the importance of a personal touch once they can resume shopping as usual.

“Sure you can go to Northern Brewing or Amazon,” he says, referring to online-only stores. “But the idea is to come in and chat up the employee or bring a beer in and say, ‘I don’t like this. What do you think is wrong with it?’”

Newcomers to the hobby may not understand that appeal. But at least they seem to be finding their way home.

Harris says 10% of his quarantine business comes from first-time customers or those who haven’t ordered in a year or more. Never a popular item this time of year, starter homebrew kits at his shop have depleted by six units this month, versus four one year ago.

“While we haven’t seen a huge increase in actual dollars this year compared to last year,” he says, “the numbers tell the story of a huge increase in actual brewing.”