I read Adam's reference to 300,000 the other day and I think he said it was maybe overstated. So I got to thinking as to how you could really determine it. With similar ideas to Bum, I wondered if it could be determined by supplier-based info, or even simply via Coopers sales figures, and their market share (most FMCG's keep track of their market share). But then I considered that this would be quite innacurate basing figures of AUssie homebrewers on sales, because consumption varies so much. Many might brew 20+ litres each week, while others would do one brew every two months, and theres variables in between.
Maybe some HB shop owners who are members here could offer some customer figures, but that's still not accurate. I dont think the few places I buy from keep records of me going into the store.
And the huge amount of people who simply buy their stuff from the supermarkets (as mentioned) will skew the figures also.
With a special interest like home brewing, there's such a small percentage of the population so a sample survey of 10,000 random people (a common way of getting stats) is also fraught with inacuracies - where would you conduct it. Pitt St Mall in Sydney or Queen St in Brisbane often is a good ground for survey taking, but while there are mixed demographics & interests, probably most of us dont 'shop' with the same patterns as most other people (our weekends are spent either at the HB shop, at home brewing, or in bed hungover :icon_cheers: ).
So I have to say that this is a tough one. One things quite certain though, I think 99-100% of the regular & transient member population of AHB are brewers. Not much help I know.
Screwy's member count isnt really a god indicator either, that only tells us how many brewers are using the internet. It may be a step in the right direction though. Perhaps we could look at the typical age demographic stats of brewers here, then look at national figures of all Aussie people in that demographic that are 'online' and of that, how many people are likely to use internet forums. Then focus on the male component of those figures (sorry to the female brewers & members, but let's face it, the ladies probably account for .025% of members here, so taking the female component away from general calculations is probably more accurate that keeping them in).
