Hi Trusty, it's a circus on here sometimes, but some of us mean well in our own warped way
As I suggested on the other thread Trusty - you would need to contact some retailers like our sponsors directly as to what sort of numbers of people they're dealing with. Such as Ross at Craftbrewer or John at Grain & Grape.
My previous comments on the other thread were more to say I'm not sure if homebrewing as a hobby is going up or down, but you got me thinking about this one - after looking at some articles concerning Coopers and their sale of Home Brew kits and malt extract it looks like homebrewing is indeed alive and well as you suggested on that previous post, and that's not just bias from a forum member on a pet subject.
This is regardless of Coopers stock being deleted from Supermarkets.
Info you might be able to use on that subject is available here:
Coopers Malt Extract sales up 14.2%
Coopers Home Brew Kits shore up flattening commercial beer sales
There's 750,000 homebrewers in the US according to their AHA association. But unfortunately we don't really have an association like that here that could give you a number. The AABC is the closest you'll get and I have no idea who you'd contact (www.aabc.org.au). Link to US data:
Article
So buggered if I know how many Aussies there are 'officially'. I have a feeling there was a thread on Aussiehomebrewer last year but I can't find it now. Would be interesting to know.
Also the ANHC Conference (Australian National Homebrewing Conference) was held last year for the second time and drew hundreds of people from right around the country. Can't remember if it was 200, 300 or more but it seemed massive. It was also supported by a huge number of commercial breweries who contributed with speakers, samples and sponsorship - and clubs from WA to Canberra to Brisbane to Melbourne were there. Paul Mecurio was there cooking up beer with food (and is an avid homebrewer himself). When you attend an event like this (held at William Angliss College every two years), you can certainly see that the hobby of homebrewing has a passionate bunch of people behind it. We're certainly out there brewing, but with homebrewing often being such an 'independent' thing many don't join clubs, enter competitions or even post on forums like these - they just get on with brewing quietly, anonymously and happily in their own backyard. Hence the difficulty of your question.
Cheers, and all the best with it.
Hopper
