Photo: Kyle Bray/WBZ NewsRadio
SALEM, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — As craft breweries across the country fight to stay afloat, many are looking to shift away from what built the craft brew boom — the pale ale.
Chris Lohring, owner of Notch Brewing in Salem, said the industry has found itself in a transitional period.
"Brewers are trying to reassess where they fit in the market," Lohring explained. "There's been a lot of change in terms of how people approach what they produce, what they try to sell, what their tap rooms look like, and what the offerings are."
In recent years, craft breweries have struggled, with nearly 500 closing last year. Lager is the most popular type of beer globally, but here in the U.S., it's often considered cheap and flavorless among craft beer drinkers thanks to mass-produced giants. Many brewers are hoping that offering lighter lagers instead of the classic pale ales often associated with craft breweries will help them stand out in the marketplace.
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"Most brewers focus on that because that's where the volume was. Well, that's not the case anymore. That's become so congested and so crowded and so many brewers doing that, that the market is not only stalled, it's actually going the opposite direction," Lohring said.
Lohring, whose brewery specializes in Czech and German lagers, said craft drinkers are responding positively to the offerings.
"We opened 10 years ago, half our board was pale ale and some limited IPA, but we've pared that down to one offering, and then we have 13 lagers."
Meantime, Mass Beer Week, an event that promotes beers brewed in the state, is set to return on Saturday and will run until March 14.
WBZ NewsRadio's Kyke Bray (@KyleBrayWBZ) reports.