Power in craft beer

By: Trademagazin editor Date: 2026. 02. 11. 17:31

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Has the beer revolution run out of steam or has its expansion period simply come to an end? Craft beer production in the US declined by 4% in 2024 and for the first time in 50 years of growth, the number of breweries also reduced.

Looking for a way to reach consumers

This article is available for reading in Trade magazin 2026/02-03

Hybrid styles, new hop varieties and terroir emphasis are more and more in demand. The business model is also changing, with mass-marketed supermarket craft beer becoming increasingly difficult to sell. In the Czech Republic – alongside strong lager traditions – world-class craft breweries have emerged over the past 15 years, but the growth in the number of breweries has stopped here as well. Small breweries are experimenting with more and more creative “style studies”.

In Hungary the market share of small breweries is somewhere between 4% and 5%, but the number of breweries is only about a tenth of that in the Czech Republic, underlines beer writer György Vétek, and the total production of small breweries is only around a quarter of the Czech level, with more than half covered by the Pécs brewery alone. Unfortunately, this is where the similarities end. In a peculiar situation, Hungarian craft breweries aren’t actually competing with each other, but with imported craft beers – in both price and quality.