09/10/2025
Attention All Craft Brewers:
If you're having difficulty developing new sales and marketing initiatives, new avenues for growth and/or new products, please read the article below and then reach out to our company so we can collaborate with your team on taking your business to the next level. Jon Reynolds, President of Sales Results, BrewPlan, LLC
How To Generate New Craft Beer Sales In A Declining Market?
Written by Jon Reynolds, BrewPlan, LLC, a marketing consultancy located in Onalaska, WI focusing on brand and go-to-market strategies for craft brewers, boutique wineries and craft distillers.
We talked to 25 different Craft Beer experts about how they plan to grow their businesses into 2026-27. Here are some excerpts of what these industry experts had to say about how to generate sales in a Craft Beer downturn and facing industry headwinds:
Background:
Matt Gacioch, chief economist from the Brewers Association (BA), predicts a trend improvement in craft beer over the next 24 months. He stated at CBC that Craft Beer market declines were -4% in 2024, but this was partially attributed to huge growth of RTD Spirits and Cocktails, which are somewhat driven by some Regional craft brewers. Matt said also that some of the 2024 decline was partially attributed to losses associated with the exit of Anheuser-Busch and Molson-Coors of select craft brewers they had in their portfolios (A-B sells off 8 breweries to Tilray and Molson Coors sells 4 breweries to Tilray, plus closes Leinenkugel’s). With 9,612 craft breweries now operating in the U.S., the market has matured. The best way for continued growth in craft is for brewers to continue to connect with their customers and tell their stories over and over to stay relevant. They will need to create untapped niches, solve rising cost issues, circumvent tariffs, find creative partnerships, take advantage of price increases, delve into new emerging segments, and refresh your brands. Matt also says that Craft under-indexes in C-Stores, which provides a unique channel opportunity. Finally, there is room for more optimism, Matt says that 47% of the smaller craft brewers (Taprooms and Brewpubs) actually showed growth in 2024. ¹
Sales Declines Require Decisive Action Plans—Here’s Some Steps that Craft Experts Suggest:
1.) Reconnect with your best customers—use the 80/20 rule and talk to, or better, have the brand owners personally visit the 20% of your customers that do 80% of your business. You can’t find answers behind the Laptop screen, so seek out better information at their place of business. Note: This includes both distributors and key retailers. Short surveys are also a good way to glean information about new business development, sales programming, new products or service tips that you need to improve on. In-market field visits are also a good way to better understand what the competition is doing, where your brand is winning or not, new packaging that is emerging, POS/merchandising ideas and pricing changes that may be affecting your brewery.
2.) Reevaluate your brand and go-to-market strategy—small changes go a long way in re-building some things that used to work for you. Look for value-added strategies without raising your prices. This may include moving deliveries from one day to another; more field sales support (changing an internal employee into a sales rep); spending two weeks instead of one week in your core market per month; attending more beer festivals with volunteers or office staff; multiple crew drives in your Top 3 markets. A packaging refresh (like an Anniversary pack) can also add incremental sales, if you can afford it. If your brewery offers food, try to bundle food with beer specials. Added value gets consumers to buy both and getting something for “free or large discount” makes consumers feel special.
3.) Revamp your pricing strategy—study the competition; determine if your brand is priced on par with the largest sellers in the market. Be sure your “per can” price is not too high, too low or straddled in between. The key is to match them, not sell below them. A tiered pricing strategy sometimes works the best for this adjustment—Tier 1 Core brands; Tier 2 High ABV brands; Tier 3 Barrel-Aged brands; Tier 4 One-off’s/Special Bottle Releases/Collector Bottles or Cans. Offer the consumer value and drive them to your Taproom whenever you can.
4.) Enhance The Customer Onboarding Experience—sometimes you need to augment the customer experience with your brand and/or your Taproom. Start with a new Brewery Loyalty Program; Offer incentives to your best customers/investors for continued loyalty—this could be exclusive bottles/ tastings, special beer releases, new SWAG, tickets for entertainment performances, private brewery tours, VIP parking, invite them to brand naming sessions, or Brewmaster Dinner discounts. Try to make your best customers feel special and valued. Add a referral program, where you reward employees or good customers for bringing in new members to the loyalty program. Send thank you’s at year-end for their continued support.
5.) Find new marketing approaches and messages--sometimes marketing campaigns become stodgy and fall on deaf ears—time to shake it up. New social media images, new email blast, new website look, new messages/taglines, a new wall-scape, bus-sides, new signs in or on the brewery, paint a mural or a sidewalk, new truck or van decals, new SWAG on the Taproom or new mediums (like local radio or OOH). The key is to be consistent with your brand across all channels.
6.) Pump up the sales force—create new incentives that motivate the top sales performers to gain new business; reward your team for their hard work, even when the market is slow. When employees feel appreciated they are more likely to give 100% each day on the job, even during the frustrating slow periods. Cash, gift cards, merch, shopping sprees and vacation trips are the most common awards. Set realistic and attainable goals—align them with the business goals.
7.) Use your internal data off the dashboard to zero in on where the problem lies—rank the largest declines by customer; focus on the brand(s) that are declining; hold a think tank meeting where the main decision-makers can help make suggestions on how, where to improve. Get both marketing and sales involved. If available, review by retail account, so you can drill down to where the problem lies. Develop action plans to correct the deficit. Implement plans with major customers. Review progress in 3-6-9 months.
8.) Bring in professionals with fresh ideas—outside perspectives offer fresh thinking. Bring in a consultant who has experience in developing impactful sales and marketing plans. If you have a financial problem, bring in a finance consultant or your CPA. If you want to make distributor changes, you might want to consult with your attorney or a distribution specialist. If you need new beer styles, new packaging formats (like the 7.5 oz mini rippers), or new configurations (like 9 packs to hit a price point), you may want to bring in a beer operations consultant or a packaging professional—get at minimum two estimates for any equipment purchase. If you need a new IT system, bring in an IT professional to help you get the best system for all employees.
9.) Track sales and measure results—for sales, this might include revenue growth, profit margin, ROI, size of displays, average sales rate per day/week/month, customer comps, and ranking reports by brand by market. Distributors provide depletion data monthly, so using their data from VIP or Encompass Technology, brewers can optimize distributor inventories, manage sales resource allocation, marketing spend and prevent out-of-stocks.
10.) Keep all eyes on the market—markets are constantly evolving. Listen to your customers, read industry periodicals and analysis reports, watch pre-orders and distributor forecasts, stay in close touch with your sales team and watch the competition closely. If you see they are successful, be sure to find out what they did, how they did it, who they commissioned to help them and develop your plan on how to catch up to them. Look at other beverages and neighboring states or markets for emerging trends. One example from where I sit is the recent sales explosion of THC beverages in Minnesota. A Minnesota state law change ignited an entire new segment of business. While totals state volume of THC beverages are probably 10%, there are some Minnesota craft brewers who have over 50% of their current sales in THC beverages. Other new trends are RTS Cocktails, which in my state of Wisconsin, are led by Carbliss Premium Cocktails. They are currently selling over 4.0 million cases and their brand is not even 5 years old!
11.) Innovation is the key to your future—if sales are down, don’t just sit there and do nothing. The comfort zone of a growing craft beer industry is gone. Everyone in the organization has to provide new ideas. You need to experiment, not just with new beer innovations, but they play a role too. Challenge the marketing and sales team to come up with their Top 10 ideas for growth. Ask the Brewing and Packaging team to do the same. Ask the Chef to develop new food pairings. Ask the CFO how to cut costs so you can afford to pay for some of the new programs that the sales and marketing teams need to move the business forward. This has to be a team effort.
Hope your brewery finds a way to turn around sales in 2026-27. Keep your head up. You’re not alone when times are tough. The survivors, however, do something. They don’t wait for the market to turnaround on its own. Try to develop cost-effective strategic growth plans for the future that make sense for your business. If you are having trouble finding those niches, let us know if we can help?
Jon Reynolds, BrewPlan, LLC
Jon can be reached at [email protected]
References:
1.) Brewbound—CBC 2025 in Indianapolis: Headwinds persist, but so do successes, BA Chief Economist Matt Gacioch Says. April 28, 2025.
