It was a Brewers Association-heavy (BA) news week, starting with the announcement that Bob Pease, the organization’s president and CEO, is planning to retire in early 2025.
Pease has spent more than 32 years at the BA, and has served as CEO since 2014. He first joined the trade group in 1993 as a customer service manager, and later held roles including operations director, vice president and COO. The BA’s board of directors has retained Kittleman & Associates, a search firm dedicated to executive searches for nonprofit organizations, to lead the recruitment of a new president and CEO. Once his successor is in place, Pease will retire. Brewbound editor Justin Kendall delved into what could be next for the BA, which is also saying farewell to longtime SVP of meetings and events Nancy Johnson. Their departures signal an opportunity to replace the organization’s professional leadership and alter its direction. Under Pease’s direction, the BA helped members professionalize and mature into legitimate businesses that generated millions in economic development for their home towns and states. He helped usher in permanent excise tax relief and expanded the BA’s presence in Washington, D.C. You’ll hear more from him later this week, when he joins the Brewbound Podcast. There are now nearly 10,000 craft breweries in operation across the U.S., and last year they accounted for 13% of the beer industry’s volume and 24% of dollars. However, craft never reached the lofty goal of a 20% share of volume by 2020. In fact, last year, craft recorded its first volume decline in a non-COVID year. This year, the number of craft drinkers who are drinking less craft beer than they were last year outnumbered those who are drinking more for the first time. The latter stat was shared by BA chief economist and VP of strategy Bart Watson and staff economist Matt Gacioch in their webinar on the findings of the BA’s annual Harris Poll. Some craft drinkers may be drinking less, but there are now more of them than in previous surveys. Nearly half (48%) of Harris Poll respondents drink craft beer “several times a year or more often,” and 9.1% of respondents in a 2022-2023 Scarborough USA survey said they have drunk craft beer in the last 30 days. Watson said: “Even as craft growth has stalled in recent years, the percentage of people who say they’re purchasing craft in the last 30 days, or drinking craft at least several times a year, is still going up. So that slowdown isn’t necessarily driven by the size of the total pie. It’s going to be driven by other things.” Brewbound Insiders can read highlights from the jam-packed webinar, which included craft beer consumers’ drinking habits, demographics and purchase intentions following brewery visits. | 
