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07.26.24
When self-described “retired party girl” Amanda Jones moved to Asheville in 2015, the first hike she took concluded with a brewery visit. “That kind of created my experience with Asheville,” Jones reflected while sipping an iced chai, a beverage more in keeping with her current sober lifestyle. “We just go to breweries for everything.”
The Asheville metropolitan area is home to less than 4 percent of North Carolina’s population, yet is responsible for one-third of the gross state product attributed to breweries. Beer has seeped into almost every aspect of the mountain city’s identity and economy, with a nearly $1 billion impact on the region in 2021.
But “Beer City, USA,” according to a title won in a 2010 online poll and immediately embraced, faces a sobering reality.
For about a decade, craft beer—defined by the Brewers Association trade group as the product of an independently-owned brewery that makes fewer than six million barrels annually—recorded double-digit growth year over year. Then, in 2019, growth went flat—and the N.C. Beer and Wine Wholesalers Association reports the sector hasn’t regained its fizz since. Accordingly, five of North Carolina’s 15 largest craft brewers scaled back production in 2023.
The shift aligns with research showing Gen Z is consuming less alcohol than previous generations: According to a 2023 Gallup poll, 62 percent of adults under age 35 say they drink, compared to 72 percent of the same age cohort two decades ago, with abstainers citing health concerns, fear of consequences, and—above all else—”just don’t want to” as factors in their teetotaling. But that doesn’t mean they’re decoupling liquid and pleasure. Nonalcoholic beer, wine, and spirits are now the fastest-growing segment of the beverage industry, up 31 percent in 2023, with cannabidol-infused soda and hop water also winning fans.
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