Room to grow
With such rapid growth, it might seem sensible to worry about saturation, but Rob Fullmer, CEO of the Arizona Craft Brewers Guild, says that in fact, local craft brews have a super-small slice of the pie.
“Right now 10 percent of the beer purchased in Arizona is craft beer. And really only one percent is beer that is brewed in Arizona,” Fullmer says. “You could look at is as a negative, but we look at is as a positive, that means there’s a lot of room to grow.”
And growing it is. Fullmer says Arizona has added about 11 new breweries each year for the last three years statewide, and anticipates as many as 15 opening this year. But don’t think it’s a fad, or even worse: a bubble.
Arizona’s brewing tradition dates back to territorial days. Most towns had a brewery by the 1870s, generally catering to miners. But, the arrival of the railroad, followed by prohibition, meant local brewing had largely dried up by the early 1900s.
By the 1970s and ’80s, craft beers had started becoming popular nationwide. Arizona passed a law in 1987 allowing brewers to sell their own beers without a distributor, and microbrewing in the state was reborn.
“It’s not a bubble. Bubbles don’t last this long,” Arnold says. “Just like kids won’t drive their parents’ cars, they won’t drink their parents’ beers. Thirty years ago, there wasn’t any choice, but now there is.”
