Craft beer thrives despite strong dollar

A strong dollar may be harming the competitiveness of US exports, but it has failed to dampen the world's thirst for US-brewed craft beer.

Led by increased consumption in Europe and emerging markets, total exports of US craft beer surged 36 per cent in 2014, topping $100m for the first time ever.

"The growth is being driven by the beer drinker," said Bob Pease, president of the Brewers Association, which represents small, independently owned brewers in the US. "The American craft beer revolution is not restricted to the US. It's a global phenomenon."

Though trade in the product hardly existed just a decade ago as US brewers struggled to satisfy domestic demand, exports have posted double digit growth in recent years as brewers have expanded their production capacity.

Backed by a US Department of Agriculture grant and, in some cases, the Export-Import Bank, more than 80 US craft brewers exported in 2014, increasing their sales to Brazil by 64 per cent over the previous year and to the Asia-Pacific region by 38 per cent. Sales to Western Europe and Canada were also up 37 per cent and 32 per cent, respectively.

Mr Pease points out that brewing tastes have now come full circle, as many US craft brewers initially began by trying to emulate what they felt were the superior beer styles they encountered in European countries.

"Thirty years ago, US beer in terms of flavour was pretty much considered a joke - an industrial lager. [European] countries did not take American beer seriously. American craft brewers have changed that," he adds.

The surging demand for craft comes as exports of more traditional US beers, including those mass produced by AB InBev and MillerCoors, have tapered off, growing by just four per cent from 2013-2014 after experiencing double digit growth in the previous two years.

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In 2014, total sales of US craft beer increased to $19.6bn, a 37 per cent increase from 2013. Craft beer now comprises nearly 20 per cent of the domestic beer market, a jump from just 14.3 per cent the previous year.

Still, US beer exports on the whole topped $542m in 2014 - roughly tripling in size since 2004, according to data by from the US International Trade Commission. The majority of these sales have gone to the Nafta countries as well as emerging market economies in Latin America and Asia. In 2011, developing nations overtook Western ones as the primary export markets for US beer.

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