Survey results

[Yob]

http://www.beercartel.com.au/blog/2017-australian-home-brewer-survey-results/

 

[Stouter]

Lots to ponder there.
Lack of space seems to pop up a bit as a negative thing. I've got enough room for swinging two cats tied tail to tail, so no issues there.
If I were in an inner city apartment under 80sqm I'd be considering my options though. Might even look at kegging!!

 

[Grott]

Very interesting with a few suprises

 

[mitch_au83]

Hard to get much from it with only 2500 people doing the quiz.

 

[Coodgee]

Hard to get much from it with only 2500 people doing the quiz.

That's heaps but it seems biased towards their customer base. A majority all grain brewers is probably not representative of all australian home brewers

 

[peteru]

Customer base? That would be beer drinkers that are willing to pay a bit extra so they don't have to drink megaswill.

Beer Cartel does not sell any brewing stuff.

 

[wereprawn]

Customer base? That would be beer drinkers that are willing to pay a bit extra so they don't have to drink megaswill.

Beer Cartel does not sell any brewing stuff.

Those who drink craft beer, and also home brew, would be inclined to brew AG because they're wanting to create beer as tasty and varied as the beer they often pay a small fortune for.

 

[Quokka42]

I thought it interesting - I was well within the curve on all answers, and obviously there aren't as many hipster brewers as TV would have us believe.

I am also hoping to make it along to the monster brew day on Sunday, as it inspired me to look into a real homebrew group (no offence intended.)

 

[GrumpyPaul]

2500 would be a valid sample size I think. I expect that it does have some indicative findings that give the broader home brewing community something to think about.

I agree that if it was just a survey of Beer Cartel clients it is might be weighted more towards beer buyers than brewers only.

Interesting observations fro me...

• 73% say they mainly use dry yeast - but Wyeast, a liquid, is the most popular. In fact Wyeast and Whitelabs account for 59% of our favorite yeast.

• Only 17% of us are members of an "offline group". This to me indicates there is a huge pool of potential brewers out there that Clubs could reach out to. As a member of a club it makes me wonder what the clubs could do more to attract more members - on the flip side of this it would be interesting if there was more questions that explored why brewers dont get involved in the club scene?

• Only 28% have entered a competition - I would think that this is a big issue for our comp organisers at club, State and National level. If there is a genuine desire to nuture and grow as a homebrew community there needs to be some thought about we attract the other 72% to get involved in the comp scene. I wonder what the reasons would have been for not entering comps???

• There is a question that relates to people who have never brewed - but nothing that indicates what portion of the 2500 respondents that relates to. We know from elsewhere that 22% (presumably of 2500) have given it away but we dont get any idea what portion of the total survey have never brewed. But this does go to show that the target audience was more than just brewers,

Personally I think the findings are a bit superficial - and would love to have seen some of the stuff pulled apart a bit more and delved into a little deeper

I think there its lots in here to get the discussion happening across the brewing community - I hope it gives the comp and club scene folks something to think about.

 

[technobabble66]

Some interesting results in there.
Big ups to the Beer Cartel for conducting the survey (at their expense) and releasing the findings :icon_cheers:
Basically agree with GP - it raises the question of what could clubs and competitions do to engage more people?
And hopefully helps stoke some constructive thought-provoking discussions around improving the marketplace of our favourite hobby/obsession.

 

[klangers]

The only surprises were all grain over extract, and considering how often I seem to hear people bang on about sours there seems to be very little brewed.

I can completely relate to the lack of entering home brew competitions. Personally, the things that have held me back are:

• Very rigid style interpretations - to me it stifles creativity a little by putting everything in a box and makes me second-guess which category I should enter. I know that styles are necessary to make any kind of quantitative judging possible, but the reason that's always peddled is feedback. Why not just have an open tasting and feedback session to build confidence for those who don't really want to be competitive?
• Very few competitions around, or at least I'm not getting notified about them
• Doesn't seem to be any "people's choice" awards out there, so the competitions seem a bit removed from brewing reality

The answer to why brew clubs aren't hugely popular is evident: most brew alone and want to keep it that way as it's their escape.

 

[mitch_au83]

I know a FB group similar name to here with 5200ish members. That's just one group. Also have a few workmates that just kit and kilo that I know never done the survey. All in all it's an interesting read. Good to see where I fit in there

 

[fungrel]

• Very rigid style interpretations - to me it stifles creativity a little by putting everything in a box and makes me second-guess which category I should enter. I know that styles are necessary to make any kind of quantitative judging possible, but the reason that's always peddled is feedback. Why not just have an open tasting and feedback session to build confidence for those who don't really want to be competitive?

I may be wrong, and correct me if i am, but doesn't using style guidelines for judging help identify brewers that posess enough skill to identify, design and brew beer using a finite level of control based on the parameters of their given system? Anyone can brew a beer and enter it in a competition, but unless the judges identify what you are trying to achieve it is impossible to be objective.

I for one believe that it develops my creative skill to be able to brew a beer within a style guideline that exemplifies not only my own skills, but is something that i enjoy drinking. I guess your opinions on competitions are shaped by the reasons why you are entering in the first place.

Funny you mention the open tasting and feedback session. The next competition from the brewhouse in my local area involves brewers submitting two beers the week before, judging happening that week, and then all the competitors meet the week after to taste everyone's beers with the professional brewer present to give and receive feedback. So it's both judging and brewshare in one. I also wish there were more of this format.

 

[GalBrew]

[*]Very rigid style interpretations - to me it stifles creativity a little by putting everything in a box and makes me second-guess which category I should enter. I know that styles are necessary to make any kind of quantitative judging possible, but the reason that's always peddled is feedback. Why not just have an open tasting and feedback session to build confidence for those who don't really want to be competitive?

I'm not sure how exactly you would like beers to be judged if not against style criteria. Even 'crazy' beers entered in the specialty category are judged in part against their base beer style. Beer competitions are not about artistic expression, they are an attempt to objectively quantify the various sensory qualities of a beer against a set of prescribed criteria. That aside I'm not sure what useful feedback you could expect from judging if style criteria wasn't used other than 'nice' or 'not nice'. Comps are also not run as an ego building exercise for the brewers who enter, if your beer does not rank well in a comp it means one of two thing, either it is crap or it is out of style (or both). Any half decent brewer should be able to design a recipe and brew a beer to any given style the judging process then gives you feedback on your efforts, that's the whole point.....and if you are not a competitive person, then why do you care? If you like your beer then isn't that all that matters?

 

[klangers]

This reaction proves my point. I better get out my flamesuit, and put away my opinion.

I do believe I acknowledged those concerns

I know that styles are necessary to make any kind of quantitative judging possible

If the aim is to get more brewers attending competitions, then I suggest the community starts being open-minded. I would hate it to go down the snobby road of wine tasting and competitions.

 

[mtb]

I don't think there's any flaming being done here klangers, people are simply trying to understand your view on competitions. Anyone investing/having invested their time in running one would understandably want to defend them.

 

[GalBrew]

This reaction proves my point. I better get out my flamesuit, and put away my opinion.

If the aim is to get more brewers attending competitions, then I suggest the community starts being open-minded. I would hate it to go down the snobby road of wine tasting and competitions.

I'm not trying to be a dick, I'm seriously asking how else do you actually run a comp without judging criteria from a logistical point of view. You can't just line up 400 odd beers (as we had a Vicbrew last year) and run a best of show. It's just not possible.

 

[klangers]

Mmm, fair enough. It doesn't do much to encourage me to attend a comp though.

I suppose understanding starts with listening. Being defensive doesn't get one anywhere.

I don't have the answers, and I'm not for a moment suggesting we abandon styles and criteria. I'm more saying that it's very intimidating for first-timers.

The problem is that I am a very competitive person, so I don't enter a competition lightly. If there were some intro things that weren't necessarily so formal and didn't require such logistical efforts, it would certainly help bring more people into the comp scene.

 

[GalBrew]

Mmm, fair enough. It doesn't do much to encourage me to attend a comp though.

I suppose understanding starts with listening. Being defensive doesn't get one anywhere.

You should attend one if you can and volunteer to steward rather than judge (unless you want to judge of course). From an educational point of view you want get a better chance to taste a wide range of homebrew from crap to perfection and everything in between from all styles. It's especially a good opportunity to taste some of the more obscure styles that aren't readily available commercially. Anyhow the choice is yours, I'm not sure why my comment would scare you off attending a comp. just pointing out the reality of the situation.

I'm not exactly sure what you are referring to as these 'formal' things that put you off, but feel free to PM me as I'd be curious to hear your thoughts if you feel intimidated about getting into comps. The reality of the situation is that stewarding at least is quite relaxed, informal and is much more fun than judging (those guys do it tough).

Also, I can't comment on the smaller comps, but the big ones are quite the logistical exercise that needs to be completed in as short as possible a timeframe due to costs and the fact that everyone from the top down is a volunteer.

 

[BeerCartel]

Hard to get much from it with only 2500 people doing the quiz.

That's heaps but it seems biased towards their customer base. A majority all grain brewers is probably not representative of all australian home brewers

Customer base? That would be beer drinkers that are willing to pay a bit extra so they don't have to drink megaswill.

Beer Cartel does not sell any brewing stuff.

Those who drink craft beer, and also home brew, would be inclined to brew AG because they're wanting to create beer as tasty and varied as the beer they often pay a small fortune for.

Hey Guys,

I'm a bit late to the party here - but thanks to everyone that completed the survey, it was hugely appreciated!

The sample size of 2,500 is massive - I've done a lot of market research work for the big end of town Telstra, CBA, American Express etc etc. The majority of market research is done on a sample size of around 600-1,000 as it costs heaps to get people to answer surveys. I worked on a study for the launch of James Squire 150 Lashes - back then I think we couldn't even hit 500 responses.

The survey wasn't done just on our database, we asked everyone to help promote and get behind it as the results were going to be given back to the industry.

There were a huge amount of sources where people came from to complete the survey; home brew stores emailed to their customers, it was posted in home brew facebook groups, it was in different beer media (Australian Brews News, Beer & Brewer) etc etc. Our aim was to make the results as accurate as possible and we could only achieve this with the great support from our industry. The Beer Cartel database would have accounted for less than 10% of all the responses (though quite a few craft beer drinkers are home brewers).

Hope that helps give a bit more info.

Any other questions let me know.

Cheers!
Richard