re: Has the "craft beer/Brewery" industry declined?

Southern Craft makes the worst craft beer across their lineup. There’s zero chance they survive if Gilla and La Chien are putting out good products. What I have had from La Chien was outstanding. I haven’t tried Rally Cap or Istrouma yet.

Well I was just talking about places that serve overpriced and glamorous donuts across the country. I saw a food truck the other day selling gourmet cupcakes for $6.50 a piece!

I must say, though: Voodoo Donuts are the only ones I’ve ever had that can top hot fresh crispy kreme glazed donuts. Their prices are ridiculous, but the product is quality.

I’m sure it’s crazy

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What's the beer industry like in your
city?

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Kicking arse. No decline in sight.

I'm sure a few craft breweries will fail for one reason or another, but more are starting up.

I think it’s harder now than it used to be as the market is larger and more educated. I don’t know if you’ll see breweries emerge and grow exponentially through their first five years like what was possible for some of the big names in the market now. I just don’t think there’s space for it. Yes, I’m biased, but having worked at Trillium and seeing some of the numbers that place runs on (I’ve only seen the most superficial level), I just don’t think that model can happen now. I think that success comes in knowing your market intimately and, like bottomland says, manipulating the demographics to leverage calculated growth. Don’t try to overstep your bounds. And I expect that contraction will happen as a result if there being less room for trash beer. But that void will be filled by those who make good beer, or temporarily filled by some new trash brewery that eventually closes its doors.

Basically I’m saying that if you make good beer and you don’t overextend yourself you can make it in the market today.

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BR and Nola could each sustain 3-5 more

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Definitely BR. I'm looking forward to more offerings.

When I moved to Charleston 4 years ago, the pickings were slim and now they have a great setup for a city that size with geographic and style variation within the metro.

BR has done nothing since I left college and the industry exploded. Tin Roof is fine but I want more options and variety. I'm not going all the way out to SC and word on here is that it's not even good. Hopefully these new ones in BR are decent.

NOLA has improved greatly from 7 years ago when all they had was NOLA without any food options. Could have used all the choices when I lived uptown...

2 more breweries will open in EBR this year plus one in Denham and one in Gonzales.

Tin Roof won’t really be the only game in town anymore soon.

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I don't think it is near declining, rather I think the terms "deceleration" and "maturing" are more apt terms to describe the current craft beer market.

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This

No industry can grow exponentially forever. Eventually they all reach their sustainability point and growth slows.

That isn't "declining", its reaching maturity.

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But is it too late for these expansions? Seems like what the OP is alluding to it might be too little to late?

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Not in Baton Rouge.

One thing breweries have been able to really tap into is the family friendly taproom environment. There are a lot of 20s-30s people out there with kids that would love a place to go hang out, meet some friends, have a few beers, maybe grab some food. Taprooms are filling that market quite well... sort of like the neighborhood bar, but bring your kids, or your dog, etc.