"When America sneezes, Belgium catches a cold."
Axiom of the global brewing industry
My fellow hop lovers, Doctor Beer has a heavy heart. Not as heavy as the night I learned of Anchor Brewing's closure — the doyen of American craft breweries, 127 years of history liquidated in a matter of months. But close.
Ten years ago, craft beer seemed invincible. Every weekend, a new artisan brewery opened somewhere in America. Taprooms bloomed like gueuzes in spring. Consumers, seduced by hopped ales, imperial stouts and saisons inspired by our Belgian traditions, were finally turning their backs on industrial giants. It was the golden age. All sunshine and clear skies, right?
Well... no. The Brewers Association's April 2025 figures are unequivocal: in 2024, American craft production fell by 3.9%. For the first time since 2005 — twenty years — closures outnumbered openings. 529 businesses shut their doors. And early 2025 data points to an even sharper fall: -5% in volume.
But Doctor Beer, you'll say — that's happening in America! What does it have to do with our beautiful Belgian beer, UNESCO heritage, pride of our ancestors? Everything, my friends. Absolutely everything. And here's why.
To understand today's crisis, we first need to understand yesterday's miracle. In the 1950s and 60s, America essentially drank three beers: Budweiser, Miller and Coors. Golden, slightly bitter water, over-pasteurised, designed to please the masses and offend no one. American beer culture was scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Then came Fritz Maytag. In 1965, this heir rescued Anchor Brewing in San Francisco from the brink of bankruptcy. He turned it into the laboratory of a brewing revolution. Ken Grossman (Sierra Nevada, 1978), Jim Koch (Boston Beer / Samuel Adams, 1984) and Brooklyn Brewery (1988) followed in his wake. These pioneers shared one conviction: Americans deserved better. And they were right.
| Year | Craft breweries | Market share | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1980 | ~80 | < 1% | ▲ Birth |
| 1994 | 537 | 1.5% | ▲ Rise |
| 2005 | 1,574 | 4% | ▲ Acceleration |
| 2015 | 4,269 | 11.2% | ▲ Peak growth |
| 2019 | 8,275 | 13.6% | ▲ Zenith |
| 2023 | 9,812 | 13.3% | ▼ Inflection |
| mid-2025 | 9,269 | 12.8% | ▼ Decline |
Source: Brewers Association Annual Reports 2005-2025 — preliminary data 2025
"Growth in the 2010s was like driving on a motorway in good weather. Everything you did seemed to work. Today, it's a mountain road in snow."
John Coleman, CEO of Artisanal Brewing Ventures (Sixpoint, Southern Tier), 2024In brewing circles, summer 2019 is now cited as the moment something shifted. White Claw and Truly burst onto American shelves and bars. These hard seltzers — lightly alcoholic sparkling waters, light, fruity, low-calorie — captured consumer attention with devastating efficiency.
Between 2018 and 2021, the hard seltzer market grew by +66%, from 14 to 72 million cases.
34% of Gen Z consumers prefer hard seltzers when buying alcohol.
The global hard seltzer market was worth $17.24 billion in 2023.
In March 2020, bars and restaurants close. Overnight, American breweries lose their two main revenue streams. Craft production collapses by 9% in 2020. The 2021 recovery raises false hopes — but underlying problems have worsened. Post-COVID inflation sends raw material costs soaring: barley, hops, aluminium, steel, glass.
"2023 was the first time, outside 2020, that independent American breweries saw their volume decline in the modern craft era."
Bart Watson, Chief Economist, Brewers Association, December 2023Production capacity is used at less than 50%. Half the equipment bought at peak prices during the boom years sits idle. A devastating symbol of the sector's over-expansion.
| Indicator | 2023 | 2024 | mid-2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Craft volume (change) | -1% | -3.9% | -5% (est.) |
| Breweries open | 9,812 | 9,600+ | 9,269 |
| Annual closures | 418 | 529 | >250 (H1) |
| New openings | 580 | 430 | declining |
Sources: Brewers Association Annual Report 2025
"Craft is going through a painful period of rationalisation. This isn't the end of artisan beer — it's the end of the era of easy growth."
Bart Watson, President of the Brewers Association, January 2025The doyen of American craft breweries. 127 years of history liquidated. The ultimate symbol of an era over.
Taprooms closed in multiple states. The aggressive growth model running out of steam.
The California IPA icon sold off in pieces. Production reduced, ambitions scaled back.
Taken over by Boston Beer Company. Loss of independence for one of the country's most creative breweries.
This is the demographic shock the industry refused to see coming. Generation Z — born between 1997 and 2012 — drinks structurally less alcohol than any previous generation at the same age.
An Attest study of 1,000 young Americans reveals that 46% are "simply not interested" in alcohol.
34% cite mental health reasons. The "sober curious" movement has gone mainstream.
Off-premise beer consumption fell -2.9% in volume in 2024.
The cruel irony: the generation that made craft beer cool — hipster Millennials — is now 30-40, with children and mortgages. As one American brewer put it: "It's really hard to down three 7% IPAs, wake up the next morning and start the kids' football."
Craft beer is no longer just fighting industrial beer. It's up against an armada of alternatives: RTD cocktails, alcoholic kombuchas, THC-infused drinks in legal states, high-quality non-alcoholic beer. The cruel paradox Doctor Beer has observed for years: craft beer created a demanding, curious consumer — who is precisely now exploring all these alternatives.
Post-COVID inflation hit every input: barley (+30-40%), hops, aluminium, steel, energy. Since 2025, Trump-era tariffs are massively aggravating the situation. For a small brewery operating on less than two months' cash reserves, every cost increase can prove fatal.
"The biggest difference between breweries that survive and those that close? It's not the quality of the beer. It's the rent."
Matt Gacioch, Staff Economist, Brewers Association, 2025In 1980, each new brewery captured unserved demand. In 2024, with 9,600+ breweries in a contracting market, every new entrant cannibalises its neighbour. Distributors are simplifying their ranges, cutting the weakest players. Breweries that invested heavily during the boom years are now carrying debts that have become unsustainable in a market shrinking 4% annually.
Belgian Beer World, opened in the former Brussels Stock Exchange — €94 million in renovation, targeting 360,000 visitors in its first year — welcomed only 150,000. Even the temple Belgium built to celebrate its beer struggled to find its audience.
| Indicator | Value | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Belgian domestic consumption | -6% | 2023 |
| Belgian consumption over 10 years | -20% | 2013-2023 |
| Total exports | -7.5% | 2023 |
| Non-EU exports | -8% | 2024 |
| Current consumption per capita | 68 L/year | 2024 |
| Consumption per capita in 1900 | 200 L/year | historical |
Sources: Belgian Brewers Annual Report 2024; ESM Magazine June 2025; Forbes Belgium March 2025
70% of Belgian beer production is destined for export. This exceptional ratio long cushioned domestic consumption drops. But since 2023, this shield is cracking. American and Asian markets — which happily absorbed our Chimay, Orval and lambics — are precisely those hit hardest by the craft crisis. The circle is complete.
"The export situation is like having had an umbrella for years, and now it's starting to leak."
Breandán Kearney, author of 'Hidden Beers of Belgium', December 2024Industry experts agree on a well-established phenomenon: American market trends reach Europe with a 5 to 7 year lag. If this analysis is correct, Belgium is currently experiencing what the US was experiencing between 2018 and 2020 — before the great collapse of 2023-2024. In other words: the worst may not yet have arrived.
Athletic Brewing Company, founded in 2017 and specialising exclusively in non-alcoholic beer, has become one of the fastest-growing craft breweries in the north-east US in just a few years. An unthinkable feat in the old era.
But for small Belgian craft breweries, the NA segment is a trap: removing alcohol from a complex beer without destroying its aromas requires costly equipment (reverse osmosis, vacuum distillation) — out of reach for a microbrewery already operating on razor-thin margins.
"The non-alcoholic market is now the decisive segment. But few craft breweries can afford the entry ticket."
Cédric Dautinger, editor-in-chief of Beer.be, March 2025In today's brewing industry, it's better to be either very large or very small. The "middle class" of breweries — regionals, semi-nationals — are caught in the tightest vice.
"The biggest challenge, candidly, is over-expansion. The large breweries have the firepower. The tiny ones have their costs under control. The ones in the middle? They're stuck."
John Coleman, CEO of Artisanal Brewing Ventures, 2024In Belgium, this phenomenon is particularly visible. Breweries like Cantillon (very small, very specialised, very premium) or Chimay / Leffe (very large, industrial resources) are weathering the storm better than mid-sized breweries that invested in national distribution without the financial strength to absorb crises.
Enough bad news — let's talk about what works! Because Doctor Beer is fundamentally optimistic. The strategies that allow breweries to resist exist, and Belgium is better equipped than it might seem.
In a saturated market, local beats national. The neighbourhood brewery, known and loved by its community, resists headwinds far better than a regional brand distributed across hundreds of outlets where it's just one can among two hundred.
Boston Beer Company survived thanks to Truly Hard Seltzer. Athletic Brewing never made alcoholic beer — and it's now one of the fastest-growing craft breweries in the US. Diversification isn't betrayal: it's adaptation.
Belgium has an asset American breweries can never claim: UNESCO-inscribed historical authenticity. The spontaneous fermentation of lambics, Trappist yeasts — these techniques are by definition inimitable. They cannot be reproduced anywhere else.
Brewery tourism is massively underexploited in Belgium. When a visitor lives a tasting guided by an expert, they leave as an ambassador. That experience, hard seltzers and RTD cocktails simply cannot offer.
Surviving breweries will be those that mastered their business model and built authentic relationships with their audience. This isn't the end of artisan brewing — it's the natural culling of a market that grew too fast for too long.
The golden age of American craft beer is over. And its echo is being felt all the way to Belgium. But — and this is the most important but in this entire article — Belgian beer is not American craft beer.
It's not a trend. It's not a fashion created by hipsters looking for an alternative to Budweiser. It's a thousand-year-old heritage, recognised by UNESCO, embedded in the identity of a people, in its landscapes, its monasteries, its spontaneous fermentation cellars.
Anchor Brewing died because its story was no longer powerful enough. Chimay, Cantillon, Westmalle — they won't die the same way. Not because they're protected, but because their reason for being transcends the market.
Belgian beer survived world wars, occupations, industrial depressions. It will survive the sober curious movement and seltzer competition. Provided that we — brewers, sommeliers, guides, enthusiasts — continue to tell its story, defend it, and share it with the passion it deserves.
— Dimitri Ratkovic, Doctor Beer Brussels, February 2026