Understanding Your Market

Every brewery and beer seller eventually runs into the same realization: brewing or sourcing great beer is only half the equation. The other half is understanding who is actually going to drink it, why they will choose your beer over the dozens of other options on a shelf or tap list, and how their expectations differ depending on where and how they buy. Getting a clear picture of your market is not a one-time exercise, but a habit worth building early.

Want expert help putting this into practice? Beer Online can guide you through it.

Craft Beer Drinkers Are Not One Audience

It is tempting to think of "craft beer drinkers" as a single group with shared tastes, but the reality is far more varied. Some customers are style loyalists who seek out a specific category, like barrel-aged stouts or crisp lagers, wherever they can find it. Others are explorers who prioritize novelty and are drawn to whatever is newest or most unusual. Still others are occasional drinkers who enjoy craft beer socially but do not track styles or breweries closely at all. Recognizing which of these segments you are actually reaching, rather than assuming a single generic "craft beer fan," changes how you talk about your beer and where you choose to spend your effort.

• Style loyalists respond well to detailed technical information and consistency across releases.
• Explorers are drawn to limited releases, collaborations, and anything framed as new or experimental.
• Social or occasional drinkers respond more to approachable descriptions and a welcoming taproom or retail experience than to technical detail.

Most breweries end up serving some mix of all three groups rather than a single segment exclusively, which is fine. The goal is not to pick one audience and ignore the rest, but to notice which segments show up most often in your own taproom and sales data, so your descriptions, events, and release strategy can speak to them a little more directly.

Local Versus Shipping Customers Behave Differently

Related: BeerOnline Best Practices: How to Excel in the Digital Craft Beer Space.

A customer walking into your taproom and one ordering a shipped case from across the state are not interchangeable audiences, even if they end up drinking the same beer. The local customer often values the experience around the beer: the atmosphere, the chance to talk to staff, the ability to try a small sample before committing to a full pour. The shipping customer is usually relying entirely on your online descriptions, reviews, and reputation, since they cannot taste before they buy. This means your website and any third-party listings need to work harder to convey what your taproom conversation would normally handle in person.

It is worth treating these as genuinely different relationships rather than assuming one marketing approach serves both equally well. A regional shipping customer needs clear information about packaging, shelf stability, and delivery timelines that a local visitor never has to think about.

It also pays to think about how each group finds out about you in the first place. Local customers often hear about a brewery through word of mouth, events, or simply driving past, while shipping customers are far more likely to arrive through an online search, a review, or a recommendation from a tasting platform. Matching your marketing effort to how each group actually discovers you tends to be more productive than treating every channel identically.

Watch How Preferences Shift Over Time

Craft beer trends move in cycles, and what dominates tap lists changes over the years without warning. Hop-forward styles rise and fall in popularity, interest in barrel-aging and mixed fermentation waxes and wanes, and lower-alcohol or non-alcoholic options have steadily earned more shelf space as drinkers look for variety in what and how much they consume. None of this means chasing every trend, but staying aware of where general interest is moving helps you decide when a new release makes sense and when doubling down on a proven house style is the smarter move.

The most useful signal is usually close to home: what customers ask about, what sells out fastest, and what gets repeat requests. National conversation is useful context, but your own sales and taproom conversations are a more reliable guide to your specific market, and they tend to reveal shifts long before wider commentary catches up to them.

Competitors Are Also Information

See also: BeerOnline - Expert Advice for Homebrewers and Enthusiasts.

Understanding your market includes understanding who else is competing for the same customer's attention, and not just other breweries. A craft beer drinker's budget and shelf space is shared with wine, spirits, and other breweries in the region, so it helps to have a clear sense of what similar-sized producers nearby are doing well and where there might be a gap you can fill. This is less about copying and more about positioning: if three local breweries already lean heavily into hazy IPAs, a well-made lager program or a distinctive sour project might stand out more than another entry in an already crowded category.

• Visiting competitor taprooms and trying their beers with a critical eye is one of the most direct forms of market research available.
• Watching which regional styles are underrepresented can point toward a genuine gap worth exploring.
• Pricing awareness helps you position your beer sensibly without racing to the bottom or pricing yourself out of your own market.
• Talking with retailers who carry several regional breweries can offer a broader, more neutral view of how your beer compares than any single taproom visit.

Turn Feedback Into a Feedback Loop

Market understanding is not static, and the breweries that stay relevant tend to be the ones that treat customer feedback as an ongoing input rather than an occasional survey. Taproom conversations, retailer reorders, tasting notes left online, and simple sales data all tell you something about how your market is actually responding, as opposed to how you assumed it would respond. Building a habit of reviewing this information regularly, even informally, keeps assumptions from calcifying into blind spots.

Platforms where drinkers log tasting notes and ratings, including Beer Online, are a genuinely useful source for this kind of feedback, since they capture reactions from customers who might never say anything to you directly in the taproom. As always, remind customers that craft beer is best enjoyed thoughtfully and in moderation, whatever segment of the market they belong to.