re: Parish Brewery new blog post - Limits + Brewery Production Survey Data

I did find this part interesting:

Nationally, the craft beer market is basically stagnant and had minimal growth from 2015 to 2016 which is very alarming as growth has been strong every year for the past 15 or more years. There was a giant slowdown and it came mostly in the form of large "regional" brewers selling less and producing less. Most of the brewers over 100,000 barrels produced less in 2016 than they did in 2015. I find that very intriguing as a potential indicator of things to come.

Another very interesting sign that we have personally experienced here at Parish is that raw materials are suddenly available. Last year we couldn't find enough hops, but this year the hop farms are completely overstocked. The grain price has dropped as the barley supply is overstocked. Every supplier we talk to says that most of their customers over contracted, meaning most of the largest brewers thought they would be using more hops and grain in 2016 than they actually used. Not a good sign. What do you think is coming? Are you optimistic that growth will continue and this stagnant growth year nationally is just a blip? Or are you like me and think this is too big of a sign to ignore, that the nationwide market for craft beer is definitely changing from what it was. Why does it appear that nationally craft beer appears to be hitting a ceiling?