At the recent GABS (Great Australian Beer Spectapular) awards in Australia, Epic Brewing was awarded a gold medal for Thunder American Pale Ale. Thunder has won four gold medals in a row in the three years since it launched. This continues chief brewer and founder, Luke Nicholas’s run of at least one gold medal every year for the last 21 years. Check out this article from 1999!
The Craft Beer Market
Being a craft brewer is a very hands-on experience. It’s friendly, builds relationships and develops primarily on word of mouth.
Craft beer has reached a stage of maturity in the market where turning a hobby into a sustainable business is now a real challenge.
There’s a low barrier to entry which makes it easy to start, but with its popularity, there are no more free taps in bars and no more shelf space in liquor stores.
What is the future of craft beer?
Luke envisages that pure craft would be 20% of the total market. The 80/20 rule; 80% of people aren’t going to care, as long as it’s a nice, cold, drinkable beer. The other 20% will want something tastier.
If you look at the wine market, 80% of wine is sold in supermarkets and it’s under $10 a bottle. People don’t want to pay $20, $30, $40 a bottle of wine. So craft will be the same.
It’s like anything – a pyramid – the expensive items are at the top and only a small volume is sold, the further down the pyramid you go, the cheaper it gets and the easier it is to drink, the more it sells.
In the States, craft brewers are moving more towards lagers - probably because they’re easier to drink. It’s just the market and consumers changing. The more that people get out there and try new things, the more the market will meet them.
What’s the future for Epic?
Craft beer drinkers want something new every time they drink a beer and Epic continues to successfully meet that demand.
Once you’ve created a beer, and it wins awards, you’re ready to make more of it… but the public wants something new, so they’re only going to drink it once. That’s why we have a core range – the crowd favourites, as well as providing new releases with limited volumes.
A great example of our core range is Epic Thunder, all those gold medals can’t be wrong!
“Our drinkers are loyal because they tell us
they’ve never had a bad Epic beer.”
