Homebrewing helped spark the craft beer boom, but interest is waning

On the first Thursday in October, the only homebrew supply shop in New York City held its final homebrew swap. John LaPolla, who owned Bitter & Esters with business partner Douglas Amport since 2011, said the event was “a love letter to our customers, and they gave the love back. It was just a giant mix of appreciation and sadness.”

Ten days later, at 5:59 p.m. on the shop’s last day of operation, one of those loyal customers made the final purchase.

“People were coming in (during the final days) saying goodbye to me while I was still working,” LaPolla said. “They’d say, ‘how do you feel?’ And I’d say, ‘I don’t know, I’m still finishing it.’ Now, I feel untethered … which is OK, it’s another chapter in life.” LaPolla said he plans to move out of the city, but first, he would attend a meeting of a local homebrew club that met regularly at Bitter & Esters, Brewminaries, for some closure.

The story of Bitter & Esters – the loss of both a homebrewing supplier and the community gathering place it provided – isn’t unique. Over the last few years, homebrew stores have shuttered across the country, and while the exact number is difficult to pinpoint, there’s anecdotal evidence in the announcements. Among the 2024 casualties: Atlantic Brew Supply in Raleigh, North Carolina; Vermont Homebrew Supply in Winooski, Vermont; and Salt City Brew Supply in Salt Lake City. In late November, My Local HomeBrew Shop in Falls Church, Virginia, became the latest, just three months shy of its 20th anniversary.

Around 540 homebrew shops appear on the American Homebrewers Association’s directory, though many survive because they’re also hardware stores, or sell beer and wine. The business closures reflect a steep decline in homebrewing interest in the United States. The AHA’s own membership is down. It had about 45,000 members between 2016 and 2019; in a 2023 year-end annual survey, it counted only 30,000. After consecutive years of underwhelming attendance at Homebrew Con, the biggest national homebrewing event held by the AHA, this year’s convention was rolled into the Great American Beer Festival while the AHA decides how to proceed.

Local homebrewing groups are also downsizing. In Southern California, SoCal Cerveceros club president Marvin Gomez says membership has dropped by 50 members to 52 over the past three years. Brooklyn’s Brewminaries club still counts 130 active members, but that’s also down from its peak, says president Kari Vaughn.

Where have the homebrewers gone? What does their absence say about craft beer at large, which is facing its own struggles with interest and sales? And what does a possible future for homebrewing and the community aspect that has long been central to its appeal look like?

“Homebrewing clubs provide an important social outlet,” Vaughn said. “You make friends, you learn alongside each other. There’s a great satisfaction that comes with DIY, especially when it’s something you can then share with people.”

Chris Anderson, owner of Maryland Homebrew supply shop in Columbia, says the people are what have kept her in the homebrewing world as opposed to commercialized craft beer: “I was offered different jobs in the beer industry when I was working at (Maryland Homebrew), before I bought it, but I loved this community so much I didn’t want to leave it.”

The drop-off in homebrewing and community spaces for it may feel sudden to longtime enthusiasts. For more than three decades, homebrewing thrived as a hobby. In 1978, President Jimmy Carter legalized the activity, which had been banned since Prohibition. The following year, Charlie Papazian founded the American Homebrewers Association. Homebrewing competitions, clubs and shops proliferated as Americans learned to make beers that weren’t available on the light lager-dominated market. Several of those hobbyists went pro, opening the first contemporary craft breweries, including Ken Grossman with Sierra Nevada Brewing Company and Jim Koch with Samuel Adams.

Homebrewing continued as a farm team for the burgeoning craft beer industry. After a 2013 law change in New York enabled taprooms to exist, frequent hobby homebrewers and Bitter & Esters regulars opened their own breweries in New York: Finback Brewery in 2014, Strong Rope Brewery in 2015 and KCBC in 2016. Gomez says SoCal Cerveceros members launched California breweries Hermosa Brewing, Feathered Serpent, Brewjeria and Norwalk Brew House, among others.

Co-founder of KCBC Tony Bellis was an integral member of the Bitter & Esters community, as he went from customer to staffer. The shop opened right as he was staying home with his newborn son and was homebrewing often, while also planning a career transition into beer. “I was that homebrewer walking in, ‘I want to open a brewery,’” Bellis said. “John and Doug were probably like, ‘Oh, sure.’” But soon, he landed his first brewing job at the now defunct Greenpoint Beer Works, and LaPolla and Amport asked if he would teach a homebrewing 101 class at the shop. “That place is really pivotal in my starting a business,” Bellis said of Bitter & Esters. He also came to meet Bobby Rolandi, working retail at the shop, who has been KCBC’s head brewer since the brewery opened.

Bellis sees Bitter & Esters as a driver of growth and diversity in homebrewing and craft beer. Not only did staff and customers end up going pro, but the shop was fertile ground for inclusive homebrew clubs like Brewminaries, which grew out of the customer base. “Suddenly there were younger people homebrewing, and more women in the homebrewing scene,” he said. “That ended up trickling down into the professional brewing world.”

By the mid-2010s, the Brewers Association counted more than 4,000 breweries across the country, and some in the industry began to worry that craft beer’s ubiquity could threaten hobby homebrewing. Anderson says while it wasn’t as significant as the current decline, she saw an early drop in homebrewing activity around 2015 to 2016 compared to what she calls a heyday in 2012.

“What changed the structure of (homebrewing) … was access,” said Mike McGarvey, a co-founder of Washington D.C.’s 3 Stars Brewing – the brewery had a homebrew shop that closed in 2020, and the entire business shuttered in 2022. “There were a handful of breweries that were well thought of but you couldn’t get to … then suddenly, people had options wherever they were.”

Despite the dip, homebrewing carried on. “I was asked back then if I thought breweries would hurt my business,” LaPolla said. “I thought, ‘Do restaurants hurt grocery stores?’ If you’re into something, you want to make it.”

This rang true for plenty of homebrewers, and the activity surged in the early months of the pandemic with people stuck at home. Taprooms were closed indefinitely and people were seeking busy-making activities to fill the time – alongside sourdough starters and jigsaw puzzles. Per the Associated Press, one of the best known homebrewing suppliers, Northern Brewer, reported a 40 to 50% spike in sales in the first month of the pandemic. But as restrictions lifted, many of those would-be brewers abandoned their projects just as new knitters forgot their sweater attempts.

LaPolla believes post-lockdowns, people wanted to get outside of their homes and back to enjoying food and drinks in restaurants and breweries. Now, even if their amount of discretionary spending is similar, people allocate those funds elsewhere. Some homebrewers say they are experiencing sticker shock when shopping for ingredients and deciding it’s just not worth the investment. Vaughn says liquid yeast has gotten “crazy expensive,” and Kendall Alvarez Eskew, owner of Jersey City homebrew shop The Thirsty Quaker, says he’s noticed some suppliers have stopped selling supplies in sizes accessible to homebrewers. Sanitizing solutions no longer come in four or 16 ounces; Five Star’s Defoamer once came in two-ounce packages, and now Eskew can order it only by the gallon.

Longtime homebrew enthusiasts might also just be aging out. Award-winning homebrewer Annie Johnson refers to the large percentage of homebrewers over the age of 50 when she lists factors for the decline, such as “health reasons, boredom, getting serious for retirement … the physical nature of homebrewing – even though (some things) are automated now, it’s still quite physical with a lot of lifting.” A 2018 AHA study found 38% of members were from Gen X, compared to 30% Millennials and 28% boomers.

It’s a generational dynamic affecting craft beer itself: Many of the old guard fans now consume less alcohol for health and lifestyle reasons. Research shows Gen Z isn’t backfilling the gap – instead, they’re chasing flavors across categories such as ready-to-drink cocktails and functional, nonalcoholic beverages. There’s optimism about craft beer, however. Alcoholic beverage preferences tend to be cyclic, a pattern behind amaro’s recent resurgence, for example. Brewers like Brett Taylor, co-founder of Brooklyn’s Wild East Brewing, point to the first craft beer industry crash, in the 1990s, during which many of the first-generation breweries folded – but plenty survived, and craft beer grew bigger than ever.

“I don’t think after a 9,000-year run, beer is suddenly going to fall out of favor with people, or that Americans will decide they don’t like beer that tastes like anything and just want to drink macro (brewery offerings),” Taylor said.

But how much does craft beer’s future hinge on homebrewing’s vitality? If people aren’t homebrewing, who are tomorrow’s professional brewers? They might be brewers taking different pathways. Because of the brewery boom, there are more entry-level jobs that let hopeful brewers get a foot in the door. Several universities also offer an educational springboard into brewing, McGarvey notes, pointing to the Beer Brewer Professional Certificate program at Virginia Tech and the University of Richmond.

Still, homebrewing remains a viable tool for anyone interested in going pro. McGarvey says craft beer’s popularity made trade professions desirable and, even as strictly a hobby, LaPolla reasons that people often return to an interest in making things by hand, whether that’s homebrewing or knitting. One such hands-on hobby is bringing a younger generation into homebrew shops right now: LaPolla, Alvarez Eskew and Anderson have had customers stocking up on supplies for mead. The fermented honey and water-based beverage with ancient roots is more accessible for beginners than beer and has been lauded for its sustainability – instructional videos have been trending on TikTok.

“You don’t have to do as much cooking (to make mead), and it takes up less room,” Anderson said. She’s been bringing in other supplies, too, in response to customer interest in cheese, yogurt and sourdough starters. Alvarez Eskew also stocks ingredients for making kombucha and shrubs. At a recent Brewminaries event in Brooklyn, Vaughn says members made nonalcoholic beers, ciders and hop waters, and executive director of the AHA Julia Herz has been using her homebrewing equipment to make cherry soda, among other beverages.

Advanced brewing technology may also be a boon for homebrewing as new at-home systems can reduce initial knowledge barriers for first-time brewers. Pinter, for example, is a tabletop setup; users simply add yeast to wort and wait for fermentation. U.S. CEO of the British company Paul Benner believes the streamlined system is more welcoming.

“(Homebrewing) is an expensive hobby to get into right away,” he said. “It takes up a lot of space, a lot of time, a lot of commitment. The beer quality may not be great right away for new brewers, and I think people get burned out quickly.” Pinter guarantees consistent results, which Benner – a longtime homebrewer himself – hopes gets more new homebrewers into the fold, even if they then move onto traditional setups.

Some shuttered shops have moved their operations online, including Minnesota-based Northern Brewer, More Beer and Craft A Brew. But while user-friendly at-home kits and online retail options may appeal to Gen Z, these won’t replace what many consider to be homebrewing’s greatest benefit.

“Online, the community space is lost,” Bellis said. “Bitter & Esters was a space for homebrewers to get together, do bottle shares, swap ideas – that’s going to be a big miss. Because what homebrewing is all about is sharing the thing you make with other people, getting their feedback and seeing their enjoyment.”