What are newbs like these days?

I’ve been very impressed with folks who I’ve run into lately who are newly into beer. It seems like many quickly understand the wide array of offerings out there, are attracted to pretty good beers, generally, and open to exploration.

This seems quite different from days when craft segment offerings weren’t as common.

How are newbs where you are?

I will refer to Spain, where i more or less master the local scene: new beer drinkers seem to be obsessed with IPA. In fact now the expect hops in every single style, being dissapointed if they don´t get them.
They seem to reject classic brews, as most of belgian, german and british.
I found this quite sad. As a beerlover i´m open to all styles, bearing in mind different characteristics for each one.

But i guess this is due to the lack of beer culture here in Spain. I guess time and beer divulgation are the only cure to this.

overzealous..

In my opinion a lot of newbs immediately make the leap to the hard to find, limited release this, limited that, and mostly seeking IPAs or BA stouts, instead of also first becoming familiar w/ the fundamental beer styles, getting to know the trappist Belgian tripels and quads, differentiating between what an American IPA is vs. elsewhere, trying the classics that have been around for many many years and are legendary beers that get overlooked.

I’ve seen a lot of people who were previously into Pale Lagers get into their local brewery and what they have to offer. This is a nice thing to see.

Fresh and local is huge. Lots of the younger crowd really enjoy clean hoppy things. The drive for new, interesting, exciting is quite big. Very little attention paid anymore to dust collecting belgians and english beer. Small uptick in german beer oddly enough. Large shift from alcopop to fruit flavored soda beers and ciders.

Small minority of outspoken truck chasers/latest/greatest limited release only beer drinkers.

As a newb (I am 22) I would say my interest in and jump was pretty big right away. While I am far from being knowledgable about a lot of things, it took about a year from my first beer until I learned to enjoy and appreciate all styles. Overall, the scene where I live is awful. Unless it’s Bud or Coors, 99% of the crowd where I am could care less. Which is quite sad.

I work at a craft beer shop, so I see a lot of people that are newly into beer come by...

Many are middle-aged people that hear from their coworkers about how crazy-good Zombie Dust, Hop Slam, Pliny, KBS, BCS, and other big-hype releases are.. These people are pretty annoying (I try to be nice though)

A lot of newbs are people that have an Untappd addiction. A lot of them. I really think the new popularity of Untappd is good for the industry. It encourages people to focus less on the hype and more on just trying as many different beers as possible, which I think is great.

Then there are the legitimately curious 21-23 year olds who are new to buying their own beers and haven’t yet been indoctrinated by BMC. They are aware of craft and just gained the ability to explore it for themselves. I love helping these types out, I can relate to them best..

Like pepsican said, fresh and local is definitely big... Local brewery Rhinegeist have been getting a lot of buzz here in Cincinnati lately, and their canned six-packs are definitely our biggest sellers currently

Originally posted by pepsican
Fresh and local is huge. Lots of the younger crowd really enjoy clean hoppy things. The drive for new, interesting, exciting is quite big. Very little attention paid anymore to dust collecting belgians and english beer. Small uptick in german beer oddly enough. Large shift from alcopop to fruit flavored soda beers and ciders.

Small minority of outspoken truck chasers/latest/greatest limited release only beer drinkers traders.

Originally posted by pepsican
dust collecting belgians and english beer.

I see a lot of people in Florida going towards the wheat IPAs easy drinking belgian wits, and local pale ale. I also see a lot of people looking for beer with added flavors. (vanilla, curacao, grapefruit bomb etc) The newbs in FL are more interested in craft cocktails than beer.