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The craft beer industry is known for its multiple fads and trends, including and definitely not limited to barrel-aged beer, NEIPAs, glitter beer, pastry stouts, and adding [insert adjunct here] to beers. Some may even say craft beer is a fad altogether. Where will hard seltzer fall in the timeline? Is it just another fad or will it become a mainstay in the industry?

I’ve been wrestling with this question for months now, and I think it’s time to investigate it.

Am I late to the party? Probably.

It’s safe to say that hard seltzers have grown in popularity over the past few years. Within the last few months, thanks to COVID-19, hard seltzer sales have been on the rise with budget beers being not too far behind.

Whether it was due to people saving money or being more health-conscious, more and more brands of hard seltzer are popping up every week.  So far in 2020, traditional macro beer brands have released a hard seltzer line including Molson Coors, Corona, and Bud Light. Microbreweries have also been adding hard seltzers to their rotations, especially in the summer. The skeptic in me feels like we’ve been down this path before…

Flashback – Summer of 2015

Yes, that’s right. Small Town Brewery’s Not Your Father’s Root Beer hit the scene during the summer of 2015. This beverage became a hot commodity for summertime activities.

Photo Credit – Meijer

Yes, hard seltzers were around, but no one was paying attention to them as this craze blew up! Macro brands and microbreweries were beginning to develop their own hard root beer, and later, hard pop/soda flavors. This beverage craze soon died away and nowadays only a handful of hard root beers still occupy grocery store shelves, including a rebranded OG.

What’s next?

Cue the eye roll from all the haters out there: I will be giving hard seltzers a try this summer. I’ll still be drinking craft beer, but I will also be looking into what the hard seltzer craze is all about by drinking as many varieties that I can and reviewing them. Perhaps by the end of the summer, I’ll be able to conjure up a list of my favorites, as Good Housekeeping did.

Cheers!


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Ed Norton

Edwin "Ed" Norton was first introduced to craft beer when his designated fraternity Big Brother Vince asked him if he knew anything about the topic. Ed admitted his ignorance and the rest is history as Ed and Vince would split six-packs of craft beers each week during Ed's probationary status. Ed is now a craft beer enthusiast who is always on the lookout for a beer he has not tried when bottle shopping or drinking at breweries and bars. In addition to drinking beer, this livelong Michigan resident enjoys a bunch of hobbies that he doubts you really care about, other than drinking beer and sounding off about it.

2 Comments

Hard Seltzer Review - Trail Point Brewing Company - 616 Hard Seltzer | Better On Draft · May 24, 2021 at 8:32 pm

[…] I looked online at their beer menu ahead of time and saw that they had a piña colada hard seltzer. I reached out to Greg Evans, co-owner and CIO of Trail Point, to see if there were more hard seltzers up the brewery’s sleeves. He informed me that the brewery has done five different flavors so far with one or two available at a time. Trail Point’s been paying attention to “gauge if seltzer drinkers will drink any seltzer or if the flavor has a big impact on sales.” This craft beer drinker and part-time hard seltzer drinker clearly falls into the first camp as I’m trying to see what the fuss is all about with my Hard Seltzer Summer. […]

RTD Review: Pink Lemonade + Blue Raspberry (Clubtails) - Better On Draft · August 3, 2022 at 10:11 am

[…] throughout the state of Michigan. I shared similar sentiments in 2020 about Hard Seltzers when Hard Seltzer Summer kicked off, and look at the Hard Seltzer market in […]

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