The only hard data you can go by is a proper survey (ie MHBs). you cant really extrapolate the data baased on population growth as you dont know the takeup rate of the increased population.
Precisely. A random sample of society have been asked the questions in MHB's commissioned survey, which covered 10,000 actual measurable people for this subject (10,000 households at 4.5 head per, 2.5 being kids, one being female, one being male). Whilst it's 10 years old, it's sure as hell going to be a more accurate evaluation of how many HB'ers are out there than counting kit can sales or whatever else.
All we need to establish is whether this was done over a wide cross section of income brackets and localities - I would assume a professional organisation charging for such surveys would be, unless MHB requested specificly to be done in his area only, for his business interests (and of course there's no problem with that!). MHB, can you recall if it was done locally or wide spread ?
If this is a true picture (ie 1 in 11) then we would only need to determine the growth in the
entire industry of HB supply over the last decade, and apply the % increase to the aformentioned statistics.
Population increase is irrelevant, being that immigration is strong, or at least that pre-1999 immigrants are having kids that may not be inclined to either drink or if they do, wouldnt be keen on making their own beer. How many first generation Chinese or Middle Eastern brewers do we have here ? <1% ?
