DRAFT Magazine

Advertising Age is not the first publication we think of when we picture craft beer. (That would be DRAFT Magazine, duh.) Nor is it the second. But if they keep producing articles such as What Your Taste in Beer Says About You, the magazine might soon sneak into our top 10. So what does Ad Age think about craft beer drinkers? Well…

This group is more likely to spend time thinking about beer rather than work. They are more open-minded than most people, seek out interesting and varied experiences and are intellectually curious. Craft-beer drinkers also skew as having a lower sense of responsibility — they don’t stress about missed deadlines and tend to be happy-go-lucky about life. Craft-beer lovers are 153 percent more likely to always buy organic, 52 percent more likely to be fans of the show “The Office,” and 36 percent more likely to be the ones to choose the movie they are going to see at the theater.

Pat yourself on the back, craft brew drinkers. We sound like awesome people.

Apparently, beer isn’t selling well in Russia and Hungary. (Who knew?)

SABMiller, the second-largest brewer in the world, cut forecasts for beer growth on the Continent from four to six percent a year through 2013 to two to four percent. According to the company, sales in Western Europe are decreasing while growth in Eastern Europe has slowed.

“For years we have been outperforming our four to six percent volume targets, and we’ve seen consumption growth moderation coming for a while,” Alan Clark, the brewer’s managing director for Europe, told Bloomberg. “When markets mature then the focus has to be on share. If we do not gain share this year we won’t achieve flat volumes.”

That’s corporate for “sorry dudes, we’re probably going to lose money.”

It’s so cute when mainstream media finally discovers a trend.

Over the July 4th weekend, CBS’ Early Show invited Food & Wine magazine’s Wine Editor Ray Isle on to the show to talk about craft beer. Why a wine editor is taking about beer is beyond us, but the point is that a Big, Important Broadcast gave our little world some love. You have to enjoy that fact.

Isle helped America pair five types of beer — lager, pilsner, kellerweiss (w/lemon), ale and porter — with food, and did a solid, if not spectacular job. (We would have simply turned to our food issue, but to each his own.) But hey, A for effort.

Thanks for playing, CBS.

Beer snobs, look out. More people in the U.S. are becoming beer connoisseurs, or at least they are buying an increasing amount of craft beer.

According to statistics from Information Resources, inc., craft beer sales were up 9 percent from mid-May to June 14, while major beer brand sales were down 3.4 percent. The data comes from what has been scanned at a number of retailers, most of which include grocery and chain stores.

Although this doesn’t necessarily mean that more beer-guzzling college students are trading out the Natty Light for, say, Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA, it does create a mental picture that’s a little more refined, doesn’t it?

– Annie Woods

We’re a couple days late, but the Washington Post has a story detailing how Boston Beer Co. — brewers of Samuel Adams — is about to outgrow the craft beer distinction, at least in the eyes of the IRS.

See, the Brewers Association defines craft breweries as those that produce less than 2 million barrels per year. Boston Beer shipped 1.992 million during 2008 and could cross the threshold in 2009 (and certainly by 2010).

The distinction won’t change much for the company founded by Jim Koch — on the first 60,000 barrels shipped, it will have to pay a tax of $18 per barrel instead of $7 — but the Brewers Association will be forced to alter some of its statistics, as beers sold by Boston Beer currently account for 23 percent of the craft beer market. “When that day comes, you’re going to see a lot of asterisks in our statistics,” BA’s director, Paul Gatza, says.

Koch doesn’t seem perturbed. “I don’t think the IRS should be determining what craft beer is,” he says.

(Hat tip: The 2 Beer Guys Beer Blog.)

United States and Canadian law officers cracked a major child pornography with the help of one man’s knowledge of craft beer. We’ll let Canada.com explain:

The key to solving the case was the Canadian officer’s discovery of an online, child-porn photograph in which a can of beer could be seen in the background. The officer recognized the beer as a regional brand distributed in only eight states in the Northeastern U.S., including Maine and Maryland. … [U.S. District Attorney Rod Rosenstein] expressed gratitude to the RCMP and Toronto Police Service, singled out the unnamed Canadian investigator for kick-starting the cross-border probe by noticing that “a beer can in the photographs appeared to come from the northeastern United States.”

Who doesn’t love a good list? Movies, restaurants, songs to make whoopee to — rank them numerically and we eat them up.

That’s why we were super excited when the Brewers Association, an advocacy group that represents the majority of brewing companies in the U.S., released their annual lists of the top 50 craft brewing companies and the top 50 overall brewing companies, ranked by volume of beer sales.

You can see the entire lists here, but we’ve laid out the top 10 in each category for you viewing pleasure:

Top Craft Brewing Companies
1. Boston Beer Co.
2. Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.
3. New Belgium Brewing Co.
4. Spoetzl Brewery
5. Pyramid Breweries Inc.
6. Deschutes Brewery
7. Matt Brewing Co.
8. Boulevard Brewing Co.
9. Full Sail Brewing Co.
10. Magic Hat Brewing Co.

Top Overall Brewing Companies
1. Anheuser-Busch InBev
2. MillerCoors Brewing Co.
3. Pabst Brewing Co.
4. Boston Beer Co.
5. D. G. Yuengling and Son Inc.
6. Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.
7. Craft Brewers Alliance, Inc.
8. New Belgium Brewing Co.
9. High Falls Brewing Co.
10. Spoetzl Brewery

This year’s rankings are pretty similar to 2007’s, but there were some notable changes. The consolidation of MillerCoors and the merger of Widmer Brothers and Redhook into the company now named Craft Brewers Alliance, Inc., allowed two new craft brewers — Big Sky Brewing Co. and Mac & Jack’s Brewery — to claim spots in the Top 50 Overall list, and the Saint Louis Brewery made its first appearance in the Top 50 Craft list.

See? Isn’t this stuff exciting?