DRAFT BEER STAYS STEADY
A wide cross section of draft stays strong and craft rises to the head of the class.
By Johnny D. Boggs F
ew things are hotter these days than a cold draft beer. "Draft is hot," says Kip Snider, director of beverage for Southern California-based Yard House Tap Room, which off ers 130
to 250 beers on tap, priced from $4 to $8.25 for 10-ounce pours, in 32 restaurants in 10 states. "Everybody knows that." Many might also know that draft consumers still skew
predominantly male, but operators are also saying that women aren't shying away from ordering something from the taps. "I used to say [the draft consumer] was a male 21 to 50," says Bob
Barry, chief operating offi cer of Th e Greene Turtle, an Edgewater, Maryland-based, sports-bar chain with 29 locations in the Mid- Atlantic states that off ers 16 to 24 draft beers priced from $3.50 to $9.75 for 16- and 22-ounce pours. "But now it's everybody." Th e reason? "Th e draft beer market is changing dramatically," Barry says, "because of the craft and import explosion."
BY THE NUMBERS Nearly 50 percent of the alcohol sold at Red Robin Gourmet
Burgers, a Greenwood Village, Colorado-based chain with more than 450 locations across the United States and Canada, is draft beer (fi ve to 13 taps priced from $3.49 to $5.99 for 16- and 22-ounce pours), says senior beverage manager Jill Helmerick. Of that, 60 percent is craft and imported beers. According to the Beverage Information Group's (BIG)—Cheers
Fifty percent of the alcoholic beverages sold at Red Robin is draft beer.
www.cheersonline.com
parent company—Beer Handbook 2011, draft and packaged beer sales each dropped 2.3 percent in 2010 with draft maintaining a 9.6 percent market share versus packaged beer. Draft saw 236,141 2.25-gallon cases sold in 2010, down from 241,806 in 2009. Yet the leading micro and specialty beer brands saw increases, selling 64,715 cases in 2010 compared to 57,980 in 2009, a jump of 11.6 percent, BIG reports. Other chains have similar reports. Th e Greene Turtle sells 65
percent draft beer compared to 35 percent bottled beer, and beer outsells liquor 65 to 35 percent. At Minneapolis, Minnesota-based
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